Disclosures: Kyung Cheon Seo: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To delineate the effect of gabapentinoids (pregabalin or gabapentin) on the neurological and functional improvement in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients, depending on the timing of administration.

Design: Retrospective study Setting : Rehabilitation unit in tertiary care hospital Participants : Fifty SCI patients who received gabapentinoids at various time point (users), and 15 SCI patients who did not (non-users) were included

Interventions: Depending on the start of administration, the users were divided into two groups: early users (before 14 days after SCI) and late users (started administration from 14 days after SCI). All subjects received individual physical and occupational therapy (30 minutes twice a day).

Main Outcome Measures: Subjects were assessed for neurological status by International Standards for the Neurological Classification of Spinal Cord Injury (ISNCSCI) and functional status was assessed using the Korean version of Modified Barthel Index (K-MBI) and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) at admission to and discharge from the rehabilitation unit.

Results: Among users, 31 patients were early usersand 19 patients were late users. Early users started administration of gabapentinoids from 4.26±3.85 days post-injury and late users did 23.00±8.98 days post-injury. Users showed improvement in lower extremity motor score, pinprick and total sensory scores during follow up period while non-users did not. Early users showed improvement in all motor, pinprick and total sensory scores during follow up period (p-value < 0.05), while late users showed improvement only in upper extremity and total motor scores (p-value < 0.05). There was no significant difference between in changes of all subscales and total score of K-MBI and motor FIM. Among the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (AIS) C patients, 6 patients (46.2%) among 13 users had changed to AIS D whereas all 15 non-users did not. Conclusions: We suggest that early administration of gabapentinoids might be enhance the neurological recovery in SCI but effects on functional recovery is unclear.

Level of Evidence: Level III

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/effects-of-gabapentinoids-on-neurological-and-functional-improvement-in-patients-with-spinal-cord-injury/