Therapeutic effects of rehabilitation training methods on spinal cord injury: a meta-analysis

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a lesion of neural elements of spinal cord. Frequently, there is motor incomplete injury and locomotor disability. Robot assisted locomotor training, functional electrical stimulation (FES) devices, and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) devices are commonly used to improve motor control and gait of patients with SCI. The efficacies of different interventions for SCI have not been reported comprehensively, and a full comparison of these strategies may benefit clinicians who apply these techniques in the rehabilitation of patients with SCI. This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the efficacies of different interventions for SCI. We did a systematic review and meta-analysis by searching for publications using PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Database, the database of the US National Institutes of Health, and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform on Dec 30, 2018. Randomised controlled trials and controlled trials that compared interventions with usual care or a no exercise control, and that were published in English, were selected for our meta-analysis. The primary outcomes included functional independence (assessed using the functional independence measure, SCI independence measure, American Spinal Injury Association [ASIA] upper extremity motor score [UEMS] or lower extremity motor score [LEMS], and other hand function tests), walking speed (10 m walking test [10MWT]) and walking distance (6 min walking test [6MWT]), walking capacity (walking index for spinal cord injuries version II [WISCI II]), spasticity (modified Ashworth scale [MAS]), and quality of life of patients with SCI. The secondary outcomes included patient dropout and adverse events during intervention. Weighted mean differences and 95% CIs were used to measure intervention efficacy, and the OR was used for analysis of adverse events. Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale scores were used for quality assessment of the included studies. Meta-analysis was performed using Revman 5.0 software. Our initial search yielded 1410, 1643, and 452 English articles reporting the effectiveness of rTMS or FES, exercise or training, and robot assisted locomotor treadmill training on functional recovery after SCI. Of these articles, 27 randomised controlled trials and three controlled trials, including 1020 patients with SCI, were included for meta-analysis. Four articles were available for evaluating rTMS versus control (81 participants)