The SCIRehab project: Treatment time spent in SCI rehabilitation: Speech language pathology treatment time during inpatient spinal cord injury rehabilitation: The SCIRehab project.

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Study examined the nature and distribution of speech-language pathology (SLP) activities delivered during inpatient SCI rehabilitation and identified predictors (patient and injury characteristics) of the amount of time spent in specific SLP treatment activities. Data were collected from 600 patients with traumatic SCI admitted to six rehabilitation centers during the first year of enrollment in the SCIRehab project. SLPs documented the details of assessment and treatment and time spent on each of a set of specific SLP activities during each patient encounter. Ordinary least squares stepwise regression models are used to identify patient and injury characteristics predictive of treatment time in the specific SLP activities identified. SLP consults were requested for 40 percent of SCIRehab patients. Fifty-seven percent of these patients received intense therapy (defined as more than five sessions during the rehabilitation stay); the remainder received primarily evaluation or less intense services (one to five sessions). The patients who participated in intense treatment received a mean total of 16.1 hours of SLP; significant differences were seen in the amount of time spent in each activity among neurological injury groups. Cognitive-communication and swallowing therapy were the most common SLP activities. Patient and injury characteristics explained a portion of the variation in time spent on cognitive-communication therapy but did not explain the variation in time spent on swallowing and other SLP treatment activities.

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