We investigated the outcome of cervical cord injury patients treated with conventional rehabilitation in our hospital. For the purpose of this study, we employed FIM score and ASIA motor score as the indices of patient's functional recovery. These indices were expressed as the difference in each score obtained before and after inpatient rehabilitation. Fifty-two cervical cord injury patients were chosen for the subjects (mean age : 47.9, the majority of the patients distributed between teen age and sixty). The main causes of their injury were falling to the ground, downfalling, and traffic accidents. The mean increments of FIM score and ASIA motor score were 14.3 and 3.1 respectively in the completely paralyzed patients. On the other hand, the incompletely paralyzed patients showed 23.4 in FIM score and 12.1 in ASIA motor score, and these were significantly greater than those of the completely paralyzed patients (p<0.05).
On the basis of these results, we concluded that conventional rehabilitation may provide functional recovery which facilitates daily living. Contrary to these results, neither complication of cervical fractures nor surgical treatment showed correlation with functional gaining in any of the patients.
