Analysis of the Functional Independence Measure Value of Cervical Spine Injury Patients with Conservative Management

Abstract

Cervical spine injury is one of the most common spinal cord injuries in trauma patients. From 100,000 spinal cord injury cases reported in  the United States of America (2008), sixty seven percent involve cervical spine injury. American Spinal Cord Injury Association (ASIA) impairment score is used as an initial assessment but not enough attention prognostic outcome of these patients was paid to. The objective of this study is to analyze the value of functional independence measure (FIM) cervical spine injury patients with conservative management and its correlation with age, sex, type of trauma, onset of trauma, cervical abnormalities, type of cervical spine lesion and ASIA impairment score. A prospective cohort study was performed to all patients with cervical spine injury treated in Neurosurgery Department of Dr. Hasan Sadikin Hospital Bandung that fullfiled the inclusion criteria. The subjects were classified based on age, sex, single/multiple trauma, acute/chronic, cervical abnormalities, complete/incomplete lesion and ASIA impairment score. The FIM examination was performed in Outpatient clinic of Neurosurgery. T-test and chi-square test was done to analyze the data. There were 17  cervical spine injury patients treated in Neurosurgery Department of Dr. Hasan Sadikin Hospital during April 2009–April 2010. The average FIM value of cervical spine injury in those patients is 4+1.63 by cohort prospective study. There were no correlation between FIM value with age, sex, type of trauma, onset of trauma and cervical abnormalities. Significant correlations were found between FIM value with type of cervical spine lesion and ASIA impairment score in cervical spine patients. Type of cervical spine lesion and ASIA impairment score have significant correlation with FIM value of patients in 6 months after cervical injury.