Research on neurorehabilitation results in vertebro-medullary post-traumatic conditions associating fractures, in a politramatic context

Introduction Polytrauma is considered to be an array of traumatic injuries, of which at least one is directly life-threatening. In another deffinition, polytrauma refers to the existence of two or more organ and / or system impairments, one of which is life-threatening, leading to physical, cognitive, psychological, psychosocial and consecutive functional disabilities, all requiring a complex and long-lasting rehabilitation program. The essential condition for polytrauma is the existence of a severe damage that involves one of the vital functions of the body. The first aim of this paper is to evidence the functional benefit of the specific rehabilitation program of patients with polytrauma, mainly associated with spinal cord injury (SCI) and other fractures. Materials and method. We performed a retrospective analysis of 68 patients having their consent and The Theaching Emergency Hospital “Bagdasar-Arseni” ethics Committee approval, N.O. 684/21.02.2019. Patients were admitted to the Neuro-Muscular Rehabilitation Clinic Division, between October 2017 and May 2019 between the ages of 19 and 79, divided into two lots of 34 patients: the study group, composed by patients with SCI and associated fractures and the control group composed by patients who had only SCI. Results. The level of severity is much higher in the study group, which includes AIS A patients (38%) and AIS C (29%), than the control group composed mostly by incomplete patients - AIS D (41%) and C (26%). The FIM average at admission and discharge is statistically significantly lower in the study group compared with the control group both at admission (25.05 versus 42.29; p = 0.001) and at discharge (38.47 vs. 55.55; P = 0.009). Conclusions. Spinal cord injury in combination with multiple fractures is a negative functioning prognostic factor, both before and after the rehabilitation program. Key words: Polytrauma, spinal cord injury (SCI), rehabilitation program,