Short background:

The European Multicentre Study on Spinal Cord Injury (EMSCI) is an international collaboration, based in Zurich, which standardise examination and recording of outcomes in spinal cord injury. The procedures and examinations are already in use in more than twenty-two European centres (including centres in Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy and Austria ), one UK, one Indian and two Canadian Centres.

EMSCI has been IS0 9001:2008 certified since August 2010. The network has established a Quality Management System for standardized assessment of spinal cord injured participants and evaluation of their medical course. EMSCI does not undertake new treatments or interventions but provides a template for systematic examination of spinal patients in the expectation of future trials of neuroprotective and neurodegenerative treatment. There is no comparable benchmark of outcomes in spinal cord injury. Since launch of the project in 2004 to date eighty four papers have been published using the EMSCI platform. There have been international proposals for a standard spinal cord injury dataset and EMSCI is the closest project to this ideal.

In January 2024 Rehab@Muelmed, Mediclinic, Pretoria, South Africa has been accepted as a member of EMSCI. European Multicenter Study about Spinal Cord Injury (EMSCI) is an internationally recognized and scientifically successful clinical spinal cord injury network.

This will in return allow the Rehab@Muelmed, to associate with peer units in Europe and built up a close collaboration to discuss, plan and realize prospective studies from collected data including:

⦁ the relationship between muscle strength and functional measurements
⦁ the prognostic value of the measurement outcome
⦁ the mechanisms of spontaneous recovery
⦁ the efficacy of new treatment strategies.

Rehab@Muelmed EMSCI Current status:

⦁ Ethics approval

Ethical approval for the study from the HREC of the University of Pretoria (with Dr Francois Theron as PI and Dr Annette-Christi Barnard as Research Officer) has been received.

⦁ EMSCI Protocol and database test implementation

Study design, eCRF and questionnaire assembly was reviewed and vetted by a team with members from Rehab@Muelmed (incl. research coordinator and treating MDT) to understand how it can be implemented into the standard clinical regime.

⦁ First Coreset have been approved by the main study site in Zurich.