Measuring the impairment consequences of spinal cord injury

The objectives of this study were to develop and validate an equal-interval measure of neurologic impairment from the International Standards for Neur ological and Functional Classification of Spinal Cord Injury Patients devel oped by the American Spinal Injury Association. These standards were used t o rate impairment at admission and discharge to Model System facilities. Th e results demonstrate that the standards fulfill their purpose of character izing sensory-motor impairment. Developed was a self-scoring key that rehab ilitation clinicians can use to obtain a measure of severity that combines sensory and motor level ratings and completeness classifications to describ e impairment more precisely and illustrate the magnitude of reductions in i mpairment. This measure can be used to monitor improvement over time and co mpare severity across individuals or groups.