Background: Traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) has profound effects on the patient's health
condition and function. However current treatment strategies fail in terms of cure.
Thus, rehabilitative management has become the main gadget to promote patients' residual
function. The most challenging aspect of rehabilitation is high costs of inpatient
rehabilitation programs and poor continuity of care while patients are transferred
to home. In this regard, numerous home based rehabilitation programs have been introduced.
Objectives: This review is an attempt to better introduce and classify different aspects of home
care programs for patients with TSCI all around the world. Methods: A literature search was conducted in the PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar database.
Studies that addressed rehabilitative programs for patients with TSCI in their home
or home-like facilities were reviewed. Reference lists from retrieved articles were
also reviewed. Results: Home based rehabilitation can be categorized in five different but naturally relevant
fields: home aids/modification, home nursing and family help, social support, home
based primary care (multidisciplinary physician groups), and novel models/methods
(e.g. “transitional rehabilitation” or telemedicine). Conclusion: Since most investigators in TSCI home based rehabilitation have only introduced their
findings, there are no comparative studies available. Thus future studies should be
dedicated to clinical trials evaluating clinical efficacy of different strategies.
A comprehensive integrated strategy with consideration to financial and other limitations
should be applied to each specific area.
Key-words:
Home care - rehabilitation - spinal cord injuries