Comparison of functional results in non-traumatic and traumatic spinal cord injury

This study was conducted primarily to be a descriptive study about non-traumatic (NT) spinal cord injury (SCI) patients, in terms of their demographic and neurological features, and to investigate the complications and efficient results of rehabilitation in this group. The second aim of the study was to conduct a comparison between non-traumatic SCI patients and traumatic SCI patients.

The design was a retrospective study at a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Training and Research center. The study was carried out with 194 patients, of whom 63 had non-traumatic SCI and 131 had traumatic SCI. Main outcome measures were: Demographics, etiology, Functional Independent Measure score, and level of injury.

A total of 32.47% (n = 63) of the patients in the study had a non-traumatic SCI. In traumatic SCI group, the proportion of male patients were significantly more than the proportion of female patients (p = 0.002). Admission FIM score of non-traumatic SCI group was better than the traumatic SCI group (p = 0.004). The comparison of discharge FIM scores between traumatic SCI and non-traumatic SCI groups did not yield any significant results (p = 0.303). However, the comparison of FIM gain between the two groups showed a significant difference (p = 0.03). The most common complication in non-traumatic SCI group was urinary tract infection and this was observed in 25 patients (39.68%).

The present study showed that there are certain differences between NT and traumatic SCI patients. Therefore, not all SCI patients should be considered to be falling under a single category, and should be divided into groups on the basis of the etiology of the injury. It is important to consider this information while developing the targets and planning of the rehabilitation program.