Abstract: Objective To establish the proposals of clinic and rehabilitation pathway for spine and spinal cord injury. Methods The experiences in clinic and rehabilitation treatment fields, the flow path of admission and the costs of hospitalization for spine and spinal cord injury patients in Chinese Rehabilitation Research Center were retrospectively summarized and analyzed. Related data in International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) core sets were also referred. Results The present proposals were applied to patients suffered from thoracic, lumbar or sacral spine injury with spinal cord injury. The proposals consisted of two parts: the surgical interventions in acute stage (within 2 weeks after injury) and clinic and rehabilitation treatments of spinal cord injury in sub acute and later stages (2 weeks to 6 months after injury). The criteria of surgical interventions in acute stage materialized the core therapies such as reconstruction of spine stability and neural decompression, etc. The criteria of treating spinal cord injury in subacute and later stages demonstrated the characteristic of combined therapy in which rehabilitation was the central element. Conclusion The establishment and implement of the present pathways were based on the time course of disease development and the staging feature of neural recovery and treatment after spinal cord injury. The purpose of this work is to improve the quality of medical service and reduce medical consumption.

Key words: spinal injury, spinal cord injury, clinical pathway, clinical treatment, rehabilitation