Huang, G., Lin, B.L., Hu, J.H., Qiu, F.H., Zhang, W.Y., Zhang, Z.L., Fan, H., Lu, M., & Li, J.B. (2021). Effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on rehabilitation patients with spinal cord injury.

Introduction

Spinal cord injury (SCI) refers to spinal cord conduction and motor function impairment caused by direct or indirect external factors. These injuries manifest as various motor, sensory, and sphincter dysfunctions; abnormal muscle tension; and a pathological reflex in the area controlled by the corresponding damaged segments.

SCI sites include the cervical spinal cord, thoracic spinal cord, lumbar spinal cord, conus medullaris, and cauda equine [1]. The severity of the injury ranges from complete to incomplete sectioning. Previously healthy people suddenly become paraplegic or quadriplegic due to accidents resulting in self-care impairments, requiring assistance from family members to defecate, sexual dysfunction, inability to work or attend school, and restricted social communication skills. These series of sudden negative events cause psychological stress in SCI patients that experience stages of ignorance, shock, denial, depression, opposition, independence, and adaptation [2].

Although the patients' limb function and self-care ability can be improved with rehabilitation therapy alone, most patients still retain different degrees of physical disability. Finding a way to improve the body's function to the greatest extent and reduce the degree of disability presents a significant difficulty in the field of rehabilitation medicine. As the current medical technology has not solved this problem, spinal cord injury remains a mental blow and causes a great deal of stress to patients. This kind of stress may have a negative impact on the rehabilitation of SCI patients while stress relief could improve its efficacy.

The study aimed to examine the effect of acceptance commitment therapy (ACT) in traumatic stressed SCI patients in reducing the psychological stress response, identifying differences between combined rehabilitation treatment and conventional rehabilitation alone, improving the rehabilitation effect in SCI patients, and reducing the degree of disability.