CROR Outcomes Spring 2025

Spring 2025

50 Years of Tracking Spinal Cord Injury Patients

For the past 50 years, the National Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems Database has been tracking individuals with traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) -- from their initial hospitalization and throughout their life. Created with data from 18 major medical centers, including Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, the database has uncovered important trends and led to improved care for people with SCI.

Learn More About the Database

The Making of INside the OUTcomes: A Rehabilitation Research Podcast

The Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) “INside the OUTcomes” podcast, launched in 2023, features rehabilitation research, patient experiences and disability-related topics. Our podcast provides a new way for people to keep current on CROR activities and hear from a diverse range of scientists, rehabilitation clinicians and people living with functional impairments.

On this episode of the podcast, we discuss the barriers and facilitators to employment for people with disabilities. Our guests are Emily Dinelli, L/CPO, research assistant and Angelika Kudla, LCMHCA, senior project manager. They are lead authors on a pair of papers about employment based on a national survey of people with disabilities and their employers.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

Rehabilitation Measures Database Update

We partner with students and educators from allied health graduate programs to summarize measures for Shirley Ryan AbilityLab's Rehabilitation Measures Database (RMD), the go-to resource for measuring benchmarks and outcomes on physical medicine and rehabilitation.

Most recently, we have worked with students at Illinois Institute of Technology, RUSH University Medical Center, Columbia University, Seton Hall University and Western University of Health Sciences to update and add summaries to the RMD.

We welcome your questions about the RMD! One of the most common questions we receive: Can I use or get access to a particular measure?

We do not own any of the rehabilitation measures on the website, nor do we have permission to provide licensing or usage agreements. If you have questions about a particular measure, we suggest you contact the instrument authors or publishers.

If you have new information, such as a new publication, or notice an inconsistency or oversight in any of our summaries, please let us know! We are more than happy to update measure summaries. Email us at rehabmeasures@sralab.org.

CROR Collaborator Profiles

Shu Cole, PhD: Making Air Travel More Accessible

Shu Cole, PhD, Professor of Health & Wellness Design at Indiana University, leads a grant to enhance air travel for individuals with physical disabilities in collaboration with CROR. The work will include developing a training for airline and airport employees, and research to cultivate a fuller understanding of the air travel experiences of people with physical disabilities from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Learn More About Dr. Cole

Melody Yang, PhD, OT: Removing Barriers for People with Disabilities

When her father became unable to physically function after a surgery, Melody Yang, PhD, OT, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University, became acutely aware of the barriers posed by an inaccessible environment. Her experience led her to pursue a career in research aimed at removing barriers for people with disabilities. She contributes to CROR studies on employment and SCI.

Learn More About Dr. Yang

The contents of this newsletter were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant 90RTEM0001). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS). The contents of this newsletter do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL or DHSS.

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