Рossibilities of comprehensive correction of malnutrition in spinal cord injured patients.

Medical rehabilitation of spinal cord injured patients is an important medical and social problem associated with the high level of disability in this category of patients. The aim of the study was to improve the efficiency of medical rehabilitation of spinal cord injured patients based on a set of measures of nutritional support and raising the exercise tolerance. Materials and methods: seventy eight patients in the intermediate recovery period of spinal cord injury were monitored, the nutritional status was evaluated in the dynamics. In the 1st (main) group, a complex correction of the nutritional status with additional use of high protein hypercaloric mixtures for enteral nutrition was performed before and after handcycling. In the 2nd (control) group, - the rehabilitation techniques were carried out on the generally accepted basis. Results and discussion. As a result of the complex correction, the proportion of patients with mild and moderate malnutrition was significantly lower in the 1st (main) group than in the II (control) group (p = 0.05). Peak oxygen consumption increased in the 1st group of patients with mild malnutrition on 34.1% (p=0,019) and with moderate malnutrition on 23,6% (p=0,02) compared to the control group. All spinal cord injured patients of the 1st (main) group improved their motor and social activity according to the FIM scale compared to the control group (p0.001). Conclusions. The combination of adequate nutritional support and proper handcycling significantly contributes to reduce malnutrition in patients with spinal cord injury (p = 0.05). Tolerance to physical exercises during the complex correction of malnutrition significantly increased (p 0.01) as well as the motor and social activities and, therefore, quality of life (p 0.0001).