Relationship of physical therapy inpatient rehabilitation interventions and patient characteristics to outcomes following spinal cord injury: The SCIRehab project

This study investigates how physical therapy (PT) interventions during inpatient rehabilitation for spinal cord injury (SCI) and patient characteristics relate to outcomes at discharge and one year post-injury. Researchers analyzed data from the SCIRehab project, documenting PT interventions and patient details. They used regression modeling to predict outcomes and validated these models on a subset of patients. The study found that PT treatment variables explain more variation in functionally homogeneous subgroups (motor complete low tetraplegia, motor complete paraplegia, and AIS D injuries) than in the total sample, suggesting tailored interventions are more effective.

• 1
  For patients with motor complete low tetraplegia, more time spent on manual wheelchair skills is strongly associated with higher scores on the transfer component of the discharge motor Functional Independence Measure (FIM).
• 2
  For patients with motor complete paraplegia, being male is the most predictive variable for the motor FIM score at discharge.
• 3
  For patients with AIS D injuries, admission ASIA lower extremity motor score (LEMS) and change in LEMS were the factors most predictive for having the primary locomotion mode of “walk” or “both (walk and wheelchair)” on the discharge motor FIM.