Cleveland Clinic

Each year nearly 12,000 Americans suffer from a new spinal cord injury. Currently, there are over 250,000 people in the U.S. living with a spinal cord injury. This life-changing injury that often results in some form of paralysis also causes profound changes on bodily functions.
Persons living with spinal cord injury have many lifetime health concerns, including pain, pressure ulcers, respiratory complications, spasm, bowel and bladder problems, depression and sexual concerns, among several other medical problems. Patients with spinal cord injury also can be affected by irregular heartbeat, low blood pressure, blood clots and autonomic dysreflexia (where the body produces a life-threatening reflex reaction to an injury below the site of the spinal cord injury). Unfortunately, many physicians are unfamiliar with the special needs of persons with spinal cord injury—while others focus too much on the paralysis and ignore the provision of good medical care to treat the whole patient. Dr. Frost emphasizes the importance of patient education—that patients should serve as their own health care case managers and advocates to intelligently seek out specialty medical care on their own when needed.


Frederick Frost, MD, is a board-certified specialist in physical medicine and rehabilitation and spinal cord injury medicine, Dr. Frost is a national expert in the field of spinal cord injury. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, and a medical degree from Northwestern University. After post-graduate training at Cook County Hospital and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, he completed a fellowship in Spinal Cord Neurotrauma at the Midwest Regional Spinal Cord Injury System at Northwestern University in Chicago. He previously led the Spinal Cord Program at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland for 10 years, and was the Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Northeast Ohio Regional Model Spinal Cord System Grant awarded in 1995 by the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Currently

Dr. Frost is the Chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as well as the Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation and Sports Therapy. Dr. Frost has published extensively in the field of spinal cord injury, and he authored the chapter on Spinal Cord Injury Medicine in Braddom's Textbook of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which is the leading reference worldwide in the field of PM&R. He also serves as Editor of Lin's Textbook of Spinal Cord Medicine, and is an elected member of the board of directors of the American Paraplegia Society.

To make an appointment with Dr. Frost, or any of the other rehabilitation specialists in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Cleveland Clinic, please call 216.636.5860 or call toll-free at 866.588.2264. You can also visit us online at clevelandclinic.org/rehab.