13, 14 Over the past decades, and only more recently in the humanitarian field, there has been a progressive switch towards assessing patient functionality, both for management of individual patients and for monitoring and evaluation of surgical and rehabilitation programme performance.
Monitoring of trauma care programmes has traditionally focused on indicators such as mortality, complications (i.e., infection, mal-union), and length of hospital stay, with limited attention to functional recovery. 6, 7 Two recent literature reviews on ‘injury and rehabilitation in crisis contexts’ 8, 9 outlined the lack of evidence-based literature in LMIC, and in particular, the tendency towards having studies focusing on one particular medical condition or body region (i.e., spinal cord injury, 10 amputation, 11 lower limb injury 12), a lack of consensus on outcome measures, 9 and the strong focus on surgical and medical care (versus rehabilitation). 3 However, physiotherapy services are usually scarce in LMICs and not systematically implemented within trauma teams, 4, 5 despite strong recommendations for early rehabilitation and continuum of care at community level. 2 Functional recovery is critical in LMIC, as the individual's physical capacities influence their ability to access essential services and support their family–particularly so in crisis contexts, where the environment is exceptionally challenging. 1 Increased quality of care has led to a higher survival rate of severely injured patients, leaving more individuals with long term disabilities.
Trauma represents an important burden in low and middle income countries (LMIC).
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