Exercise and Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury

Sophia Batsiou, Odysseas Trikkos, Panagiotis Dafnis, & Tryfon Tofas

Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece

Abstract

The majority of people with spinal cord injury (use their arms for wheelchair mobility, so as to serve their daily needs. The decrease in physical and social activities, that is present due to disability, has as a re- sult muscular weakness, a decline in physical capacity, a lack of independence and a poor quality of life. The major aim of this review was to present a series of relative studies that have deled with the methods of exer- cise used and the affect of these exercises on the fitness levels of the individuals with spinal cord injury. Moreover, a second goal was to point the areas that the reviewed studies stress that need special emphasis when planning exercise programs. People with spinal cord injury, usually use the arm cycle ergometer or the propulsion of the wheelchair when training for their physical capacity. The training can be conducted in in-tervals or continually for duration of 30 mins, 3-5 times a week. Moreover, the intensity begins somewhere between 40%-50% of the maximum heart rate and gradually builds up to 60-80%. The training of strength and flexibility relates mainly to muscular groups and joints of the shoulder region together with the upper body. Cycling resistance training, 2-3 times per week, has invigorating results in terms of strength and physical capacity, in conjunction with the reduction in pain and injuries due to overuse. For strengthening, free weights, wrist weights, multi-gym, therabands and the individual body weights are used. The results of the present review stresses the fact that individualized training programs lead to significant improvements of the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular systems together with an improvement in flexibility, the me- tabolism and the psychological state of the individuals with spinal cord injury. The above mentioned factors improve performance in everyday activities, socializing and generally contribute to a higher quality of life.

Keywords: exercise, spinal cord injury, fitness, quality of life.