Hospital-acquired pressure ulcers associated with worse neurological outcomes: Study Reveals
Research led by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine along with scientists at the Charite-Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Berlin, Germany, provides first evidence that hospital-acquired pressure ulcers are a potent risk factor for poor neurological recovery among patients with acute spinal cord injury (SCI). Study findings are published online in the journal JAMA Network Open.
This study included 1,282 individuals with spinal cord injury, of which 594 (45.7%) developed pressure ulcers during initial hospitalization at 20 locations across the country.
“Our study found that patients with pressure ulcers regained significantly less motor function through one year after injury. In addition, their recovery of ‘independence in activities of daily living’ was significantly restricted compared to other patients,” said Jan M. Schwab, MD, PhD, co-corresponding author of the study, who is one of the leaders of Ohio State’s Belford Center for Spinal Cord Injury.
“Our results point to the need to refer acute SCI patients to neurological rehabilitation centers such as Ohio State Dodd Rehabilitation Hospital, with specialized protocols and standards to effectively prevent pressure ulcers,” Schwab said.
During this multi-center study, patients were enrolled from 1996 to 2006 and followed-up until 2016. Patients came from the 20 centers of the prospective SCI Model Systems Database in Birmingham, Alabama.
Key inclusion criteria were acute traumatic cervical SCI with relevant motor impairment as measured by American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) impairment scale.
“We wondered whether just the presence of another inflammatory lesion in the body such as a pressure ulcer – in addition to the spinal cord injury lesion itself – is already sufficient to distract wound healing,” said Schwab, who holds the William E. Hunt, MD & Charlotte M. Curtis Chair in Neuroscience at Ohio State.
Reference: Kopp MA, Finkenstaedt FW, Schweizerhof O, et al. Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers and Long-Term Motor Score Recovery in Patients With Acute Cervical Spinal Cord Injury. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(12):e2444983. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.44983
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