Publication:

Unexpected clinical and functional recovery in patients with chronic traumatic chronic spinal cord injury: a case series

Motor recovery in traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI) is reported to reach its plateau by 1 year and maximum recovery period is reported to be 2 years. Acute rehabilitation is very well documented in literature with patients reporting for functional rehabilitation immediately after shock period is over. However, the scenario being a bit different in rural areas with comparatively less awareness about role of physiotherapy, patients with tSCI reports at later stages. Reported here is a series of chronic tSCI cases who showed remarkable clinical and functional recovery in short time. Aim of this study is to report recovery in patients with chronic tSCI and to compare the patient outcomes with expected outcomes. Conventional physiotherapy was given 5 days a week with minimum 45 mins treatment. Baseline assessment at admission and at discharge was recoded. Improvement was recorded with spinal cord independence at different time points. Nine patients below 40 years of age, average duration of injury 6.2 years were treated for average of 8 months. NLI did not change in 3 patients whereas in 6 patients NLI moved 2 segments down. Mean change in SCIM score was 10 between admission and discharge. Functional status was compared with expected parameters and was found to be improved by 70%, suggesting had they come at early stage, expected recovery could have been achieved. Clinical and functional recovery in patients with tSCI may occur even after 2 years post injury.