Rehabilitation of spinal cord injury

  1.Good basic care Most patients with spinal cord injury are tetraplegic or paraplegic, and are prone to three major complications when they are bedridden for a long time. Therefore, good basic care and prevention of the three major complications are the basis of early rehabilitation training.  The prevention of decubitus ulcers is easy to occur in bed-ridden patients because the paraplegic area is not sensory and the position cannot be turned at will, so the skin and subcutaneous tissue are under long-term pressure. Therefore, we should insist on turning the patient once every 2 hours. When turning the patient with cervical medullary injury, we should keep the head and neck trunk in a straight line and fix the neck, use an air mattress, keep the bed flat and dry, and keep the patient’s skin clean and dry. After bathing, apply talcum powder to the bone ridge and massage the pressure area.  Prevention of pulmonary infection Patients with spinal cord injury are afraid to breathe deeply due to pain, and the flat position is not conducive to breathing. Therefore, lung and tracheal secretions are not easily discharged, prone to pneumonia. Especially in patients with cervical cord injury, the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles are paralyzed, leaving only the diaphragm to function. Therefore, the lungs are not fully expanded and are more prone to pneumonia. Therefore, we should help the patient to turn and pat the back regularly to discharge sputum, encourage the patient to drink more water, and nebulize inhalation to dilute the sputum if the sputum is sticky, so as to use the sputum to discharge and keep the respiratory tract unobstructed.  Prevention of urinary tract infection Patients with spinal cord injury have temporary or long-term changes in urinary function after injury, so most patients have to be catheterized, plus patients are prone to urinary tract infections when they are bedridden for a long time, so we should help patients keep the urethra clean, encourage them to drink more water, disinfect the urethra twice a day with chlorhexidine cotton balls and change the urine bag to keep the urethra draining smoothly.  2. Prevent joint contracture The correct position of the trunk and limbs can help prevent joint contracture and bed sores. The shoulder joint should be in an external position to reduce contracture and pain in the later stage; the wrist joint is usually fixed in a functional position with a splint; the fingers should be in a slightly flexed position, and passive hip and knee extension and flexion abduction and internal rotation activities should be performed five to six times a day for 5 min each time; the patient should wear anti-rotation shoes or keep the ankle joint in dorsiflexion at 90° to prevent ankle joint flexion contracture.  3.Training of activities of daily living For tetraplegic patients with different degrees of trunk and upper limb disorders, training of activities of daily living is especially important. Self-care activities such as eating, grooming, upper limb dressing, moving the patient in bed, and gradually transitioning to moving from bed to wheelchair can be done independently by most paraplegic patients.  4. Psychological care Most of the patients suddenly suffer from external injuries under normal working conditions, and they are unprepared mentally, often showing anxiety, panic and fear for their lives, not being able to take care of themselves in the future and having no economic resources, resulting in pessimism and despair, not thinking about eating and drinking, and not cooperating with the treatment and nursing work. Therefore, our nursing staff should take the initiative to care for the patient in response to these situations, understand the patient’s psychological situation, encourage the patient to establish confidence in overcoming the disease, tell the patient about the basic knowledge of functional exercise of the limbs of patients with spinal cord injury and simple methods of operation, tell the patient that as long as they adhere to the exercise and treatment will achieve different degrees of functional recovery, tell the patient that maintaining a normal diet will increase the body’s resistance and prevent complications The patient should be told that maintaining a normal diet will increase the body’s resistance and prevent complications.  5.Early functional intervention Rehabilitation should be intervened as early as possible after the patient is admitted to prevent complications. It is very important to prevent joint contracture and decubitus ulcers. It is important to let the patient perform some active activities to prevent disuse atrophy, and at the same time give the patient a sense of participation in training, rather than simply passively accepting treatment.  6, the prevention of muscle atrophy training spinal cord injury patients can use the work muscle groups to complete the activities normally can not do to compensate for the loss of function of muscle groups, such as neck injury patients can use shoulder abduction and external rotation through gravity to make the elbow extension. Selective pulling of specific muscle groups is important for patients with spinal cord injury to complete functional tasks, such as pulling the cord muscle to make the supine position with straight leg elevation close to 120°, which facilitates transfer activities and the wearing of socks, pants, shoes and knee, ankle and foot activities. Pulling the anterior thoracic muscles allows full posterior extension of the shoulder joint and facilitates transfer of movement in bed and work in a wheelchair. Stretching the hip and ankle flexors is important for walking swing and standing stability. Regular daily muscle massage and stretching, combined with acupuncture and physical therapy. Develop a muscle strength training plan, train daily according to the plan, and assess muscle strength progress daily.  7. Hand function training Patients with tetraplegia should train hand function most of the time. Use finger flexor shortening to develop functional muscle key fixation grip, provide the patient with an exercise ball or let the patient actively grasp a pen to train the patient’s grip and finger flexion flexibility. For patients who cannot actively extend the wrist, use a splint to maintain the mobility of the joint or passively help the patient to extend the wrist joint.