Long-term assessment of the functional independence measure in sports-related spinal cord injury

This study looks at patients who have spinal cord injuries from sports. It uses a tool called the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) to see how well they can do things on their own. The researchers wanted to know if surgery made a difference in how independent these patients were one year and five years after their injury. They also looked for other things that might help predict how well someone would do. The study found that factors associated with independence at one year were different from those at five years, suggesting a unique recovery pattern for sports-related spinal cord injuries.

• 1
  Factors associated with functional independence outcomes at one-year follow-up were dissimilar from those at five-year follow-up.
• 2
  Increased time spent in inpatient rehabilitation and FIM score at post-operative discharge were associated with greater likelihood of functional ability at both one and five-year follow-up.
• 3
  Spine surgery was significant for worse independence in all four FIM subcategories at one-year follow-up but was consistently insignificant at five-year follow-up.