Project Type
collaborative
Project Start Date
10/01/2016
Project End Date
09/30/2021

This is an Exploration and Discovery project, intended to enhance the understanding of what constitutes a clinically meaningful change in upper extremity neurological function after cervical SCI. The clinical significance of changes in the upper extremity motor score (UEMS) are uncertain, limiting the usefulness of this measure as a primary outcome in clinical trials. Attempts to relate changes in motor score or motor level to improvement in activities of daily living have had limited success, in part because measures such as the Spinal Cord Independence Measure do not do a good job of differentiating performance of specific tasks with or without the use of adaptive equipment (AE). Recent developments in UE assessment tools for SCI give us the opportunity to better tease out the effects of compensation and neurological recovery on completion of self-care and fine motor activities. This study will use UE key muscle scores, the Capabilities of Upper Extremity Questionnaire (CUE-Q) and items from the SCI-FI and SCI-FI/AT self-care and fine motor scales to identify the component actions required to complete UE tasks.