title: Ambulation following spinal cord injury and its correlates.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess walking ability of spinal cord injury (SCI) patients and observe its correlation with functional and neurological outcomes.
  
  
  METHODS
  The present prospective, observational study was conducted in a tertiary research hospital in India with 66 patients (46 males) between January 2012 and December 2013. Mean age was 32.62 ± 11.85 years (range 16-65 years), mean duration of injury was 85.3 ± 97.6 days (range 14-365 days) and mean length of stay in the rehabilitation unit was 38.08 ± 21.66 days (range 14-97 days) in the study. Walking Index for spinal cord injury (WISCI II) was used to assess ambulation of the SCI patients. Functional recovery was assessed using Barthel Index (BI) and Spinal Cord Independence Measures (SCIM). Neurological recovery was assessed using ASIA impairment scale (AIS). We tried to correlate ambulatory ability of the patients with functional and neurological recovery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Ambulatory ability of the patients improved significantly using WISCI II (P < 0.001) when admission and discharge scores were compared (1.4 ± 3.5 vs 7.6 ± 6.03). Similarly, functional (BI: 31.7 ± 20.5 vs 58.4 ± 23.7 and SCIM: 29.9 ± 15.1 vs 56.2 ± 20.6) and neurological recovery were found to be very significant (P < 0.001) when admission vs discharge scores were compared. Improvement in WISCI II scores was significantly correlated with improvement in neurological (using AIS scores) and functional status (using BI and SCIM scores) (P < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Significant improvement was seen in WISCI II, BI, and SCIM scores after in-patient rehabilitation. Improvement in WISCI II scores also significantly correlated with functional and neurological recovery.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Rehabilitation, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Nitin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Menon
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Rehabilitation, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Anupam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Rehabilitation, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Meeka
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khanna
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Rehabilitation, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India ; Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Arun B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Taly
keywords: Ambulation; functional and neurological recovery; spinal cord injury