Disclosures: Simra Javaid, DO: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To examine the relationship between obesity, length of stay, and WeeFIM efficiency in inpatient pediatric rehabilitation (IPR).

Design: Retrospective cohort study Setting : Inpatient pediatric rehabilitation unit Participants : Children admitted to an inpatient pediatric rehabilitation unit from July 1, 2019 – December 31,2019 who meet the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) definition of childhood obesity, defined as a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children and adolescents of the same age and sex.

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Length of stay (LOS) in days and WeeFIM efficiency in study group compared to lean kids in the same pediatric IPR and national pediatric IPR averages.

Results: The mean LOS of patients with a lean BMI was 22.29 days while the mean LOS of obese BMI patients within the facility was 33.67 days. When compared to patients admitted to pediatric IPRs nationwide, whose average LOS was 24.35 days, obese patients stayed on average 9.32 days longer. WeeFIM efficiency in patients with obese BMI was 0.64 compared to 0.54 of those with lean BMI and 0.88 of those throughout the country. Further statistical analysis is ongoing. Conclusions: According to the CDC, prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents in the United States is 18.5% and affects approximately 13.7 million aged 2 to 19 years old. Although the average LOS in pediatric IPR dropped from 31 days in 2004 to 24 days in 2014, we found that the LOS in our obese pediatric patients was greater than the national average in 2019. These findings stress the importance of identifying obesity and implementing intervention as early as possible in the rehabilitation process. Our study is still recruiting patients with the goal of including obese patients from the same pediatric IPR for 2019, and we hope to publish the completed study findings at a later date.

Level of Evidence: Level IV

« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2020

PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/childhood-obesity-in-inpatient-rehabilitation/