OT for Spinal Cord Injury

Our spinal cord injury clients stay in our hearts and minds. After all, we help them and their families navigate tremendous life changes.

This week’s article gives us a solid big-picture review of what we know (and don’t know) about spinal cord injury rehab. You’ll learn about commonly used assessments, as well as which treatments are gaining traction (and which ones aren’t).

And, most importantly, this article serves as a good reminder that there are simply no magical, straightforward answers in this area of rehab. Instead, these patients benefit most from your occupational therapy lens and your commitment to staying on top of evidence-based care.

To help guide us through this article, and pull out actionable takeaways for your practice, we are excited to welcome Simon Carson, OT/L, MBA. Simon serves as the chief of occupational therapy at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Additional OT and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Resources

Here are more resources for you to explore about OT and SCI after listening!

• Model System Knowledge Training Center

• Clinical Practice Guidelines—Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA)

• Yes, You can!: Guide to Self-Care

• Understanding Spinal Cord Injury—Shepherd Center

• United Spinal Association

Article from rapid fire questions: Higher Hospital Spending on Occupational Therapy Is Associated With Lower Readmission Rates

1. You will be able to identify commonly used OT assessments for spinal cord injury (SCI) rehab.

2. You will be able to identify the SCI treatments with the strongest evidence behind them.

• Intro

• Breakdown and analysis of journal article

  • Introduction to SCI rehab

  • Why was this systematic review completed?

  • What were the authors’ methods?

  • What were the results?

  • Conclusions and Discussion

  • Takeaways for OT Practitioners

• Discussion on practical implications for OTs (with guest Simon Carson)

  1. Can you tell us about how you found OT—and how you found SCI rehab as an area of interest?

  2. Can you tell us about SCI rehab in your current work setting?

  3. What were your initial impressions of the article?

  4. The authors mention the principles of motor control and activity dependent neuroplasticity. Are there guiding frameworks/theories you draw on for SCI rehab?

  5. During an SCI eval, what are some top of mind things you consider?

  6. What are your favorite SCI assessments to use?

  7. The categories of treatments felt pretty broad to me. Can you paint a picture of a typical SCI treatment session in your facility?

  8. Do you have any experience with FES and SCI rehab?

  9. There are so many things you can document about SCI rehab—any tips for doing so efficiently?

  10. SCI rehab is so multi-faceted, how would you recommend we learn more about it? Any specific resources?

Primary

• Type and timing of rehabilitation following acute and Subacute Spinal Cord Injury: A systematic review

Additional

• Development of priorities for a Canadian strategy to advance activity-based therapies after spinal cord injury

• Toward overcoming physical disability in Spinal Cord Injury: A qualitative inquiry of the experiences of injured individuals and their families

It is the policy of OT Potential to disclose any financial and non-financial interest the provider or instructor may have in a product or service mentioned during an activity. This is to ensure that the audience is made aware of any bias of the speaker.

OT Potential pays guest speakers an honorarium for their participation, either directly or to an institution of the speaker's choosing at their request. We invite guests whose expertise often comes from practices, programs, or building products in their field. Where a speaker has a financial interest in the subject of a course, we disclose it below so you can weigh it for yourself.

OT Potential's interest in this topic: We have no financial stake in this topic.

Speaker interests: Simon Carson has no financial interest in this topic to disclose.