Characteristics of activity-based therapy interventions for people living with spinal cord injury or disease across the continuum of care: a scoping review protocol

INTRODUCTION: Individuals living with spinal cord injury and disease (SCI/D) experience sensory and motor impairments below their neurological level of injury. Activity-based therapies (ABT) are interventions that provide activation of the neuromuscular system below the level of lesion with the goal of retraining the nervous system to recover a specific motor task. ABT can lead to increased function and improved quality of life; however, research and clinical settings currently lack tools to track participation in ABT. As a first step towards developing such a tool, a scoping review will be conducted with the objective of identifying the characteristics of ABT that individuals with SCI/D participate in across the continuum of care. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review framework. Studies that involve at least two sessions of ABT for individuals with SCI/D aged ≥16 years will be included. Seven databases were searched from their inception to 4 March 2020: Medline, Embase, Emcare, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, APA PsycINFO, Physiotherapy Evidence Database, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials. The search will be rerun in November 2020 prior to manuscript submission. Screening of titles and abstracts will be followed by a review of full texts to identify articles meeting inclusion criteria. Stakeholders will be consulted for the creation of the data extraction table. The Downs and Black Checklist or the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool will be used to assess article quality. Results will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval is not required for this scoping review. Study findings will be shared with key stakeholder groups through academic, clinical and public venues.