SCI Publications

Article discusses future directions in spinal cord injury (SCI) from a perspective of biomedical, psychosocial, and technological research. This discussion is based both on recent developments from various fields of knowledge and, more specifically, on SCI Model Systems’ research contributions to medical rehabilitation. Biomedical research includes: (1) the process ...

Study examined the association of race and cultural factors with quality-of-life factors (participation, life satisfaction, perceived health status) in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Data were collected from 275 people with SCI at 6 national SCI Model Systems centers who completed measures of: (1) participation (Craig Handicap Assessment ...

Study examined the number of full-time wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries (SCI) who felt they could evacuate from various locations and have a plan for evacuation. Data were obtained from 487 subjects from 6 SCI Model System centers who use a wheelchair more than 40 hours a week. ...

Study determined the prevalence and demographic characteristics associated with cell telephone ownership and investigated whether cell telephone ownership has a positive relationship with social integration among people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Demographic and clinical data were obtained for 7,696 people with traumatic SCI who were entered into the ...

This study identified trends in the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and outcomes of aged Medicare patients with a new traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) discharged from inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) in the United States during the years 2002 through 2005. A secondary analysis of Medicare claims and assessment data ...

Study examined the effect of obesity on change in self-care and mobility ratings and community discharge for patients with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). Data were analyzed for 1,524 patients with a new traumatic SCI discharged from Model Systems rehabilitation centers between October 2006 and October 2009. The primary ...

Study measured the wheelchair mobility of people with a spinal cord injury (SCI), and assessed the relationship between wheelchair mobility and demographics, type of manual wheelchair, and participation. Participants were 132 people with SCI from 6 Model SCI Systems who used a manual wheelchair as their primary means of ...

Study examined the effect of sensory sparing on completion of rehabilitation on neurologic, functional, and social outcomes reported at 1 year in people with motor complete spinal cord injury (SCI). Secondary analysis was conducted of data submitted to the National SCI Statistical Center Database. Of the 4,106 patients evaluated ...

Study identified changes in employment status and earnings after spinal cord injury (SCI). Interview data were collected collaboratively at 3 centers designated as SCI Model Systems. The employment rate substantially decreased from 83.3 percent at injury to 24.5 percent at follow-up (average of 3.8 years post injury). There were ...

Study developed a measure of participation enfranchisement that assesses the extent to which people with and without disabilities feel they participate in the community in a manner that is personally valuable, as opposed to assessing actual performance of community-based activities. A draft instrument was pilot-tested with 326 adults who ...

Author provides commentary on 3 articles in this journal issue that are the result of close collaboration among investigators interested in improving the conceptualization and measurement of participation. These articles offer: (1) a new tool for measuring participation, the Participation Assessment with Recombined Tools-Objective (PART-O), which combines items from ...

Study developed new estimates of the costs of care following spinal cord injury in the United States (US). Information from the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center database was supplemented where necessary with estimates from a previous comprehensive study of lifetime costs updated for inflation to 2009 US dollars. ...

Study examined the impact of Medicare’s inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) prospective payment system (PPS) on inpatient rehabilitation outcomes for patients with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI). A sample of 296 Medicare and 3,110 non-Medicare patients was selected from the National SCI Statistical Center Database from 1996 to 2006. The ...

Study examined the influence of body mass index (BMI) on physical and psychosocial health and functioning among people with spinal cord injury (SCI). A total of 1,381 people (1,107 men and 274 women), who received follow-up in 2006 to 2009, were recruited from 16 SCI Model Systems throughout the United ...

Study assessed the influence of community-level socioeconomic status (SES) and urban composition on well-being after spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation. Data were obtained from 1,454 patients with traumatic SCI from two centers participating centers in the SCI Model Systems program. Dichotomous measures of perceived health (ill versus good health), ...

Study evaluated potential pain cutoff scores reflecting mild, moderate, and severe pain in the spinal cord injury (SCI) population and determined the relationship between the derived cutoff scores and both psychosocial and functional outcome measures. The data analyzed were extracted from the SCI Model Systems database for 6,096 adults ...

Study examined the extent to which the concept and domains of participation as defined in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) are represented in general cancer-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) instruments. Using the ICF linking rules, two coders independently extracted the meaningful concepts of ten ...

Study examined the course of probable major depression among a group of 1, 035 participants with spinal cord injury (SCI) from 16 SCI Model System centers who were assessed at 1 and 5 years after injury. Probable major depression, defined as Physician Health Questionnaire-9 score of 10 or higher, ...

Study examined the effects of marital status, marital transitions, and sex on the well-being of individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) in the years since injury, examining the applicability of the marital resource and crisis models for this population. The marital resource model holds that marriage has substantial benefits ...

Study examined perceived quality of life (QOL) at 1 year postinjury in people with tetraplegia who required mechanical ventilation assistance at discharge from rehabilitation and those who did not. Data were drawn from the SCI Model Systems National Database for 1,635 people with tetraplegia who completed a 1-year follow-up ...