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Bowel care practices in chronic spinal cord injury patients
S C Kirshblum1, M Gulati, K C O'Connor
1Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, West Orange, NJ 07052, USA.
Objective:
To determine current characteristics of bowel care practices of chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients.
Design:
Prospective interview and examination of 100 SCI patients injured for more than 1 year.
Setting:
Freestanding rehabilitation outpatient SCI center.
Participants:
One hundred chronic SCI patients.
Results:
The following bowel program characteristics were found: alternate-day programs were most common; most subjects performed their programs in the morning; and tetraplegic subjects performed their programs less often, used suppositories more often, required greater assistance, and took longer to complete their programs.
Conclusions:
Bowel dysfunction in chronic SCI need not be associated with complications in the majority of cases.