Falls During Inpatient Rehabilitation After Spinal Cord Injury: Characterization, Clock-Hour Visualization, and Time
Alejandro García-Rudolph1, Mark Andrew Wright1, Emilien Amar Devilleneuve1
1Department of Research and Innovation, Institut Guttmann, Institut Universitari de Neurorehabilitació adscrit a la UAB, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain; Fundació Institut d'Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain.
Objectives:
To (1) determine fall characteristics (eg, cause, location, witnesses) of inpatients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and whether they were different for ambulatory persons vs wheelchair users; (2) visualize the total number of daily falls per clock-hour for different inpatients' features (eg, cause of injury, age); (3) compare clinical and demographic characteristics of inpatients who experienced a first fall event vs inpatients who did not experience such event; and (4) identify first fall event predictors.
Design:
Retrospective observational cohort study.
Setting:
Institution for inpatient neurologic rehabilitation.
Participants:
Persons with SCI (N=1294) admitted to a rehabilitation facility between 2005 and 2022.
Interventions:
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures:
Functional independence measure (FIM), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS), and Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM) at admission. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox proportional hazards models were used.
Results:
A total of 502 fall events were experienced by 369 ambulatory inpatients (19.8%) and wheelchair users (80.2%) in 63.9% of cases being alone, with cause, situation, and location significantly different in both groups. Clock-hour visualizations revealed an absolute peak at 12 AM (complete or incomplete injuries, with paraplegia or tetraplegia) but a relative peak at 9 AM mainly including incomplete patients with paraplegia. Of the (n=1294) included patients, 16.8% experienced at least 1 fall. Fallen patients reported higher levels of HADS depression, lower total SCIM, and longer time since injury to admission, with no differences in age, sex, educational level, FIM (quasi-significant), and AIS grade. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards identified time since injury to admission and AIS grade D as significant predictors of first fall event.
Conclusions:
Falls identification, characterization, and clock-hour visualization can support decisions for mitigation strategies specifically addressed to inpatients with SCI. Fall predictors were identified as a first step for future research.
