Spinal Cord Injury Content Creation Project

Description

This project aims to develop content in the Spinal Cord Injuries section of Physiopedia.  This content will be also included in the next Management of Spinal Injuries course that we hope to run again in the future. 

We intend to populate the site with practical, credible and thought-provoking information on all aspects of management of individual with spinal cord injury. Much of the structure of the content for this new section is guided by the curriculum for the Management of Spinal Cord Injuries course that ran in Physiopedia in 2014 in collaboration with Lisa Harvey and Joanne Glinsky. We hope to run this course again in the future.

Anyone is welcome to join in this project. You will be joining people from all over the world in contributing evidence based articles to create an evidence based reference on spinal cord injuries and the management of individuals with spinal cord injury.  In return for your efforts you will receive a certificate of completion to help you evidence your learning through your involvement with this project.

Project Team

Project Lead

Naomi O'Reilly

Contributors

Project participants will be listed here

• Dr. Jennifer Dunne
• Eugenie Lamprecht
• Redisha Jakibanjar
• Prit Shah

Project Dates

August 2015 - ongoing

Introduction

As a participant in this project you will contribute to the creation (or update an existing) page within Physiopedia.  You may choose to take part in this project as a personal contribution to your own professional development and/or you may wish to contribute evidence based information to develop this resource for our profession.  Your contribution will be reviewed by the Physiopedia team and once complete recognised by the award of a certificate of completion.

If you would like to take part in this project please follow the instructions below. 

If you have any questions, please do email us.

Instructions

1. Choose an article from the list below that you would like to develop. Be sure that the article doesn't already have a name next to it.
2. At this point you should email Rachael to let her know that you would like to join the project and which page you would like to work on.  Please feel free also to ask any questions that you have in relation to this project e.g. if you feel a new page needs adding to the list.
3. You will receive an email from Rachael (the project co-ordinator) to confirm you participation in the project and also to confirm the page that you will develop.
4. Once you have received this confirmation you are free to get on with working on your page.  You should be complete your work in a word (or similar) document See example .  If you are comfortable working in Physiopedia we are very happy for you to work directly in Physiopedia instead of producing a word document. (See content criteria below).
5. If you would like a certificate to evidence your contribution (with PP+ points, our equivalent to CEUs) - we would like you to think about your own personal learning outcomes as a result of taking part in this project.  These learning outcomes will be printed on your certificate.
6. Once you have completed your article and (if you wish to have a certificate) listed your learning outcomes please email them to project co-ordinator.
7. Your article will be reviewed by the project team and you will be emailed a response of approval or of amendments to be made.
8. Once the article has been finally approved, it will be published and you will receive your certificate of completion.

If you have any questions please do email us.

Content Criteria The content of your article must include:

• Evidence (where appropriate and possible)
• References
• Images and videos
• A list of open online resources that we can link to

Example Content

• See example document
• and page in Physiopedia related to the above example document

CPD/CE Certification

The authors of all articles that are published will be offered a completion certificate to prove their learning and professional development through participation in this project. ;

Articles

Please let us know if you think we should include anything else in this list!

1. Spinal Cord Anatomy (complete)
2. Epidemiology of Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
3. Overview of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
4. Medical Complications in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
5. Assessment of Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
6. American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale (complete)
7. Spinal Cord Injury Outcome Measures Overview (complete)
8. Prognosis and Goal Setting in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
9. Interdisciplinary Management in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
10. Spinal Cord Injury Clinical Guidelines (complete)
11. Physiotherapy Management of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
12. Therapeutic Interventions for Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
13. Discharge Management in Spinal Cord Injury
14. Upper Limb Function in Spinal Cord Injury (Dr. Jennifer Dunne)
    • Management of the Upper Limb in the Acute Phase (Dr. Jennifer Dunne)
    • Management of the Upper Limb in the Sub Acute Phase (Dr. Jennifer Dunne)
    • Measurement of Upper Limb Function in Spinal Cord Injury (Dr. Jennifer Dunne)
    • Surgical Management of Upper Limb Function in Spinal Cord Injury (Dr. Jennifer Dunne)
15. Bed Mobility and Transfers in Spinal Cord Injury 
16. Wheelchair Mobility in Spinal Cord Injury (Nafi Lefono)
17. Gait Post Spinal Cord Injury (Prit Shah)
18. Respiratory Management in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
19. Contracture Management in Spinal Cord Injury
20. Bladder Management in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
21. Bowel Management in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
22. Pain Management in Spinal Cord Injury
23. Pharmacological Management of Spinal Cord Injuries  (complete)
    • Opioids in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
    • Benzodiazepines in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
    • Gabapentin in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
    • Baclofen in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
    • Corticosteroids in the Treatment of Spinal Cord Injuries (complete)
24. Motor Skill Training in Spinal Cord Injury
25. Physical Activity Guidelines for Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
26. Cardiovascular Training in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
27. Strength Training in Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
28. Sports for Individuals with a Physical Disability (complete)
29. Sports for Individuals with a Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
30. Paralympic Summer Sports (complete)
31. Paralympic Winter Sports (complete)
32. Functional Electrical Stimulation Cycling for Spinal Cord Injury (complete)
33. Assistive Devices for Spinal Cord Injury
34. Psychosocial Considerations in Spinal Cord Injury
35. Paediatric Spinal Cord Injury (Naomi)
36. Healthy Aging with Spinal Cord Injury
37. Management of Spinal Cord Injury in Disaster Situations
38. Management of Spinal Cord Injury in Low Resource Settings

Case Studies

1. Management of Spinal Cord Injuries - Case Study Part 1
2. Management of Spinal Cord Injuries - Case Study Part 2
3. Management of Spinal Cord Injuries - Case Study Part 3
4. Management of Spinal Cord Injuries - ASIA Scoring Example

Tips

Physiopedia is an online resource that provides evidence based, critically reviewed information that is used by nearly 500,000 people every month across the world. It is a collaboratively developed project that is contributed to by physiotherapists from all over the world.  The project has standards of writing that articles must adhere to in order to be published. As a collaborative activity, please do not feel dis-heartened if others make suggests or contributions to your articles over time, it helps maintain relevance and shares learning, it is not a criticism of you personally.

With all this in mind here are 4 pieces of advice that we hope will give you some confidence about creating a Physiopedia article that will be valuable to physiotherapists all over the world!

1. Look around Physiopedia and work out what articles/pages you like and are more/less likely to engage with. Think about why this is. Is it about the title, the first sentence, layout, use of pictures/videos/presentations or something else?
2. Have a look at the article: What makes a good Physiopedia page 
3. Be mindful to reference your work and use quotation marks when appropriate. Plagiarism is not good academic practice. 
4. The article should be, wherever possible factual, not a piece to direct readers into one conclusion or another. Therefore adopt a neutral tone and voice and present other peoples arguments/references/facts and figures from all perspectives, leaving the final decision to the reader.
   
5. A word on word count. This is for you to determine as is most appropriate for your topic and approach. Ideally not a 500 word summary of a topic, but equally not a 3000 essay. Use hyperlinks to other related Physiopedia pages and information sources tactically to help manage your word count and avoid avoid long winded explanations and signpost readers to more information/background reading. Keep in your mind the situation readers are likely to be in when accessing your information - a quick reference point for sit down with a cuppa?  Aim to produce an article that critically introduces the key topics/ideas/themes relating to the article title. Use links and signposting to send interested readers to other sources and Physiopedia pages for more details....or, if you want to include a lot of detail about one specific element of your article, think about creating a separate page for it and contact the Rachael with your idea. Consider your article to be somewhere a therapist wanting to get a critical introduction to the topic might start their search.

Finally remember this project is about collaboration and harnessing of knowledge, so tap into your colleagues knowledge, skills - editing/proof reading, references and learn as you go together! Could make an interesting in-service training session, or team building exercise!

Resources

These are some resources that you might find useful:

• elearnSCI.org from ISCoS
• The Spinal Cord Injury Research Evidence (SCIRE) Project
• Understanding Spinal Cord Injury from the Shepherd Center
• Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Curriculum from the Shepherd Center
• Spinal Cord journal
• ISCoS Data Sets
• International Perspectives on SCI from WHO
• ASIA Learning Center
• Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: Management of Patients in Acute Hospital Settings (National Guidelines)