Article

For young children with spinal cord injury (SCI), the sensory exam of
the International Standards for the Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord
Injury (ISNCSCI) is long and arduous, often making it impossible to complete.
In this study, we determine whether an abbreviated sensory exam
provides comparable information to the full 56-dermatome exam. METHOD: A total of
726 56-dermatome sensory exams were completed with 190 children and youth with
SCI ranging in age from 3 to 21 years. The cohort was randomly split into test
and validation groups. For the test group, a principal component analysis (PCA)
was carried out separately for pin prick (PP) and light touch (LT) scores. From
the PCA, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed to identify the most
influential set of 4, 8, 12, and 16 dermatomes. From the sensory exam data
obtained from the validation group, a linear regression was performed to compare
the limited-dermatome composite scores to the total 56-dermatome scores. RESULTS:
For both LT and PP, the 16-dermatome test resulted in the best fit (0.86 and
0.87, respectively) with the 56-dermatome test and was comprised of dermatomes
from both the left (7 dermatomes) and right (9 dermatomes) sides and at least 1
dermatome from each vertebral region bilaterally (cervical, thoracic, lumbar,
sacral). CONCLUSION: A 16-dermatome sensory exam provided a good correlation to
the 56-dermatome exam. The shortened exam may be useful for evaluating children
with SCI who cannot tolerate the full examination.
- Enfant

Langue : ANGLAIS