FIM Gains, age, and LOS appear to have smaller effects on discharge disposition than Discharge FIM scores. Of the outcome measures examined, discharge FIM for walking/wheelchair-locomotion and bed/chair/wheelchair transfers-showed the largest group differences associated with discharge to the community followed by Discharge-FIM for bladder-management/sphincter control and cognitive-skills-subtotal score.
Kushner et al. (Tue,) studied this question.