Purpose: To describe the contents of interventions to improve self-care and mobility for patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) in early post-acute rehabilitation, using the Spinal Cord Injury-Interventions Classification System (SCI-ICS), and to compare these interventions between rehabilitation centres. The SCI-ICS describes therapy to improve self-care and mobility at three levels of functioning and consists of 25 categories with a total of 139 different interventions.
Methods: Fifty-three physical therapists, occupational therapists and sports therapists of three Dutch SCI rehabilitation centres recorded interventions with the SCI-ICS for patients with SCI in early post-acute rehabilitation for four consecutive weeks.
Results: Therapists recorded 1640 treatment sessions of 48 patients with a SCI. The mean number of treatment sessions per patient per week (8.9 overall) differed between centres (p < 0.05), unlike the mean therapy time in minutes per patient per week (259 overall). Highest frequencies for individual categories were found for 'Muscle Power', 'Walking', and 'Hand rim wheelchair propulsion'.
Conclusions: We described the specific contents of therapy of patients with a SCI in three Dutch rehabilitation centres. The largest proportion of time was spent on interventions to improve muscle power, walking, and hand rim wheelchair propulsion.