The field of life care planning has been a prolific area of practice for rehabilitation professionals since the early 1980s. Life care planners are responsible for outlining future disability-related goods and services and provide information regarding the funds necessary to provide items in the life care plan. Life care planning literature references the World Health Organization International Classification of Functioning (WHO-ICF) model as the foundation for life care plan development as it considers not only the health condition, but the environmental, personal and activity limitations of the individual. The WHO-ICF theory provided the theoretical foundation for this study as it is applicable to life care planning as well as quality of life, one of the outcome variables measured in this study.

The current research interviewed 55 adults with spinal cord injuries throughout the United States who had a life care plan developed. These individuals were surveyed for receipt of funding for life care plan items, rates of life care plan implementation, as well as quality of life reports as measured by the WHOQOL-Bref. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) found a significant quality of life difference between those who did and did not receive life care plan funding but did not find a statistically significant difference between those who implemented more than 50% of the items in the life care plan. Additional analyses were undertaken to examine demographic and life care plan related variables that contributed to life care plan implementation.