Evaluation the Efficiency of Electrical Stimulation Advanced Methods on Management of Bowel and Bladder Functions in Spinal Cord Injury Subject; A Systematic Review of Literature

To evaluate the efficiency of various methods used for SCI subjects in this regard based on the available literature.

A search was done in some data bases such as Google scholar, ISI web of knowledge, PubMed, and Scopus. Some keywords such as bowel, bladder control and management were used in combination with SCI. The studies’ quality was evaluated with Pedro scale.

From 100 articles found, 21 papers were selected based on abstracts and titles. The quality of the studies varied between 5 and 7 based on Pedro scale. There were 3 studies on abdominal muscles stimulation, 1 on stimulation of tibial nerve, 8 on stimulation of sacral nerve root, 2 on combination of stimulation and exercise, 4 on Brindley bladder control and 3 on sacralizotomy.

The bowel and bladder management functions is not the main problem of SCI subjects anymore. Some advantages of the mentioned procedures used for SCI subjects are including improved quality of life, socialization, and decreased bladder infection.