Terms and Conditions

Effective as of June 2nd, 2017

Definition of Service

The service we provide under the name of “Community” includes all the functionalities and contents that are associated with the following web domains community.paraplegie.ch and all their subdomains. For the rest of this document, the term “Community” will refer to this definition.

BY ACCESSING OR USING THE COMMUNITY, USERS AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BELOW (“Terms and Conditions”). THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS ARE EXPRESSLY INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE AND INCLUDE THE COMMUNITY PRIVACY POLICY AND ANY GUIDELINES, RULES OR DISCLAIMERS THAT MAY BE POSTED AND UPDATED ON SPECIFIC WEB PAGES. IF USERS DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, THEY SHOULD NOT USE THE COMMUNITY.

Registration Data

Certain areas of the Community (such as those where users can upload, post or share information) are only available to users if they register with us. To register, users need to provide a verifiable email address, choose a username and a password, complete the required fields on the registration form and read and accept the Community Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. Once users have done this, we will send them a confirmation email with their registration information.

The Community Does Not Provide Medical Advice

The contents of the Community, such as texts, graphics, images, information offered by our online health professionals, and other material displayed through the Community are for informational purposes only. Any content on the Community is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The advice provided on this website cannot and should not be used as a basis for diagnosis or choice of treatment. The content is not exhaustive and cannot always reflect the most recent research in all health and medical areas that are relevant in the field of spinal cord injury or in other related health conditions.

The Community has sections where users can interact among themselves and with health professionals. The material posted in these sections is presented by health professionals or by a non-medical audience for discussion purposes only. All materials cannot and should never be used as a basis for diagnosis and choice of treatment.

Users are responsible for always seeking the advice of health professionals or other qualified health providers with any questions they might have regarding a medical condition. They are urged not to disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something they have read on the Community. If users think they may have a medical emergency, they should contact emergency cares nearby.

The Community does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the website. Reliance on any information provided by the Community, its online health professionals or content-managers is solely at users’ own risk.

To the fullest extent possible, we exclude all liability with respect to the information and opinions contained in any section of the Community where users can exchange and share information and views.

Any information given on our website for drugs, technical equipment, medical treatments, specific treatment of legal issues and all other issues is only for Switzerland. Users are invited to inform themselves about this information in the context of other countries.

Behavior of the Online Community

The Community is moderated by moderators and by the Community manager. Indeed, we want to make the Community a safe, professional, and interesting platform for users to find information, ask questions and make comments. Users of the Community are granted freedom of expression within the reasonable confines of appropriate behavior. Our moderation policy applies to any area of the Community where users might post comments, threads, or contribute in any other way. Our basic rules include:

  • We would like to offer a refuge for people with spinal cord injuries, their families and friend. Therefore, calls for participation in any type of studies, projects and so on may only be published when they have been submitted to the Community Team’s e-mail address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and accepted by them. In the case of scientific studies, the acknowledged ethics application shall be attached.
  • The Community is not a platform to advertise or promote users’ own services. Users who post information about their own company or business will be asked to desist and will eventually be banned from the website. Similarly, any kind of spam, calls for donation class actions and so on are not allowed.
  • We expect users to behave appropriately and sensitively at all times and never post comments which are knowingly offensive.
  • Bad language or other undesirable terms will not be tolerated and will be censored where necessary.
  • Users shall not post or upload any information or other content that is obscene, indecent, or contains pornography.
  • Deliberately inflammatory comments about sex, age, race, religion, or politics, or any other derogatory or personal attacks will not be tolerated, and any attempts by members to deliberately provoke another member on these grounds will result in a temporary ban and the concerned conversation being removed.
  • By posting on the Community, users guarantee that their content does not infringe any copyright, database rights, trademark or other intellectual property right or other right of any other person. In addition, they guarantee that their content does not contain any information about any persons under the age of 16 unless users are either their parents or legal guardians, or have signed permission from their parents or legal guardians.
  • Content posted on the Community by users should not give the impression it comes from us where this is not the case.
  • When the moderators or Community managers shift, modify or remove a post of the users, reasons for this will be presented to the concerned user and, where necessary, the Community.
  • The decisions of the Community managers and moderators must be accepted and their instructions must be complied with. Otherwise, we reserve the right to modify or remove the articles or to remove the user account.

We reserve the right to block, suspend, or remove any material that contravenes these rules and at our sole discretion. We in no way guarantee that users’ content or any part of it will be displayed on the website. Any content is published at our discretion. Also, we reserve the right to block, disable, or remove member accounts based on any behavior which contravenes these rules.

If there is anything users are unsatisfied about on the Community, they can contact us, by writing an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Use of the Website and Copyright

Users of the Community grant us a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use their content according to our Privacy Policy. They grant us all necessary rights, licenses, consents and clearances to allow us to use that content. By posting content on shared areas of the Community, users grant us the right to use, copy, display, translate and edit the content.

The other users of the Community may access, view and print copies of the material without registration. However, they can use this material for information purposes and for non-commercial, personal use only. All copyrights are kept on the material. Users are not allowed to display, modify, reproduce, or distribute the material for any public or research use without prior written consent from the Community team.

Copyright holders, who believe that their contents have been uploaded to the site without their permission or that their rights have been infringed due to a contribution to the Community, can contact us anytime via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 0800 727 236 (from Switzerland, free of charge) respectively +41 41 939 65 55 (from other countries, charges apply).

Access to the Website

While the Community is normally available 24 hours a day, we shall not be liable if for any reason it is unavailable. Access to the website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of a system failure, maintenance, repair, or for reasons beyond our control. We also retain the right to interrupt the Community service at any time and without notice.

Links to and from Other Websites

Links to third party websites on the Community are provided solely for users’ convenience. We are not responsible for content or availability of third party websites. Links to other websites do not imply any endorsement of the material on those websites. If users choose to follow links to other websites they do so at their own risk.

If users would like to link to the Community, they have to ask for our permission. They can request permission from us by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Eligibility

Our online Community is solely for users aged 16 and over. The registration to, use of or access to the online Community by anyone under 16 years of age is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms and Conditions. By using the online Community, users warrant that they are 16 years of age or older. We reserve the right to terminate an account without warning if we believe that the user is under 16 years of age.

Password and Username

Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their passwords and usernames and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under their password or account with or without their knowledge. If users knowingly provide their username and password information to another person, their account privileges may be suspended temporarily or terminated. Users agree to immediately notify the Community team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of any unauthorized use of their account password or username or any other security violation.

Account Termination

Users agree that we may terminate a user’s account and access to the Community for reasons without prior notice upon the occurrence of any one of the following: (a) any violation of this agreement or other incorporated agreements or guidelines, (b) requests by law enforcement or other government agencies, (c) a request by the user (self-initiated account cancellation), (d) unexpected technical issues or problems, and (e) extended period of inactivity. Account termination involves removal of access to certain services of the Community and deletion of user’s registration data (first and last name, username, email address, and password) as well as other personal data (e.g. biography). Furthermore, users agree that all terminations shall be made in our sole discretion, and that we will not be liable to users or any third-party for any termination of the account or access to the Community. We have no obligation to store or transfer information or data to users that they have uploaded or saved on the Community.

Material on the Community

We may apply changes to the material published on the Community at any time without notice. Certain information on the Community may contain typographical or other errors. Please note that for the sake of greater clarity and readability we have used the masculine form throughout the content published on the Community. The Community may contain health- or medical-related materials that are sexually explicit. If users find these materials offensive, they may not want to use our site.

Advertising

The Community has a “no advertising” policy that we strive to sustain. Users are asked not to post any advertisements.

Fees

An account on the Community is free.

Interference with Use and Working of the Community

Users may not use any “deep-link”, “page-scrape”, “robot”, “spider”, or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process, to access, acquire, copy, or monitor any portion of the Community, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Community, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents, or information through any means not purposely made available through the site. Users may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part or feature of the Community.

Users may not post content on the Community that contains any viruses, Trojans, worms, time bombs, spiders, or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage the Community.

Users may not attempt to make the Community unavailable through denial-of-service attacks or similar means. Also, they may not use contact information provided by users, or collect information about users, to facilitate the sending of unsolicited communications such as SPAM.

Alerting the Community Team

If users see anything on the Community website which appears to infringe this Terms and Conditions, they can contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Liability

Neither we, nor any other party involved in creating, producing, maintaining or delivering the Community, will be liable for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may affect users or a third party including without limitation of any loss of income, profits, goodwill, data, contracts, use of money, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, whether in tort, contract or otherwise (including without limitation negligence) in connection with: the use, inability to use or the results of use of the Community, any websites linked to it, or the material on such websites; or any amount or kind of loss or damage including without limitation any loss or damage due to viruses that may infect users’ computer equipment, software, data, or other property on account of their access to, use of, or browsing the website or their downloading of any material from the website or any websites linked to the website.

In so far as we are able, we exclude all liability for all direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damage which arises out of or in connection with the use of the website.

We do not warrant that the Community will operate error-free or that the Community and its server are free of computer viruses and other harmful goods. If someone’s use of the Community results in the need for servicing or replacing equipment or data, we are not responsible for those costs.

Indemnification

Users agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Community, its managers, moderators and other staff members, health professionals, other employees of Swiss Paraplegic Group and its affiliates, as well as other partners of the Community, from and against any claims, actions or demands, liabilities and settlements including without limitation reasonable legal and accounting fees, resulting from, or alleged to result from users’ violation of this agreement.

Governing Law

If any of these Terms and Conditions should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these Terms and Conditions are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction which that Term or Condition is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be taken out and deleted from these Terms and Conditions and the remaining terms and conditions shall valid, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Switzerland. Disputes arising from or in connection with these Terms and Conditions shall be exclusively subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of Switzerland.

Questions about the Terms and Conditions

For questions or comments of the Terms and Conditions, we can be contacted at the following email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Changes to the Terms and Conditions

We regularly review our Terms and Conditions to keep them up to date. Therefore, we may update or revise them from time to time. We urge users to review the published Terms and Conditions from time to time for changes made to it.

History of last updates/changes to the Terms and Conditions:

  • On June 2nd 2017, the original version of the Terms and Conditions was published on the website.