DOI: 10.1097/PEP.0b013e3181dced67
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PMID: 20473108
Issn Print: 0898-5669
Publication Date: 2010/07/01
Functional Recovery in Children and Adolescents With Spinal Cord Injury
Ryan Brown; Carole A. Tucker
Excerpt
Comprehensive standardized functional outcome measures should be used to capture changes in children undergoing rehabilitation to examine the effectiveness of clinical practice. The Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) is one such standardized functional assessment tool that identifies the areas and extent of functional deficits and may be used to detect changes in functional recovery over time. Inpatient rehabilitation is the current standard of care after spinal cord injury (SCI), both in adults and children. The psychometric properties of the PEDI are well documented, and the test is easy to administer by clinicians or self-report in a rehabilitation setting, and it covers many aspects of both self-care and functional mobility that are the focus of initial SCI inpatient rehabilitation programs. Based on this retrospective study, the PEDI seems to have potential to be used to document functional recovery in pediatric rehabilitation for children with SCIs. Standardized assessments should be used in pediatric rehabilitation as health care reimbursement for services will become dependent on such objective measures of change. Furthermore, the use of standardized measures that we believe best reflect meaningful clinical changes may make it less likely that individuals outside our profession choose standardized measures for us.
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