Spinal cord injury hospitalisation in a rehabilitation hospital in Japan.

The Kanagawa Rehabilitation Hospital was established by Kanagawa Prefecture 20 years ago. The hospital has a 40 bed SCI unit and has been providing comprehensive medical and rehabilitation services for SCI patients of this prefecture. A letter of enquiry to 404 major surgical units within this prefecture revealed that 630 SCI patients had been under care in this prefecture during a period of 3 years. Of these, the Frankel grade A, B and C patients, were assumed to be rehabilitation candidates, totalling about 130 in this prefecture per year. The inpatient medical record revealed that we treated 770 SCI patients from 1986 to 1991. From this data, we estimated that the hospital accepted an average of 54.5 SCI patients per year for rehabilitation purposes. Other inpatients were rehospitalised for various complications. According to the study of 125 patients who were hospitalised for comprehensive rehabilitation, they waited an average of 139 days and stayed in the hospital for 288 days. The increasing number of chronic patients who required treatment of complications appeared to be delaying the early admission of rehabilitation patients. The medical treatment cost for those with spinal cord injuries was less than that for the average patient with other types of medical conditions.