Sport, free time and hobbies in people with spinal cord injury

Abstract

Study design: Prospective, multicenter follow-up (F-U) observational study. Objectives: To investigate the changes in participation and sports practice of people after spinal cord injury (SCI) and their impact on perceived quality of life (QoL). Methods: The questionnaire investigated the health status and management of clinical conditions and attendance of social integration, occupation, autonomy, car driving, sentimental relationships and perceived QoL in a SCI population 4 years after the first rehabilitation hospitalization. Results: Respondents were 403, 83.4% male; 39% was tetraplegic. At F-U, 42.1% worked and studied, 42.2% still held their jobs or studies, and 69% drove the car. In all, 77.2% had bowel continence and 40.4% urinary continence. The results showed that for the 68.2% of respondents, the attendance of friends, relatives and colleagues during their free time was the same or increased compared with the time before the injury, whereas 31.8% showed a decrease. The amount of time the 52.1% of respondents left home was the same or increased compared with before the trauma, whereas 50.6% of the respondents said that the time they were engaged in hobbies was either the same or increased. Conclusion: SCI people who perceived their QoL as being higher, and whose attendance, autonomy and time was increased in respect to hobbies, were mainly men with an age range between 36 and 40 years, unmarried, paraplegic and with A-B Asia Score. Regarding the amount of time dedicated to practicing sports, the only difference was the most of that respondents, who indicated a decrease, were women.

Do people with spinal cord injury meet the WHO recommendations on physical activity?

“…In this study, we compared those who do (at least once per week) with those who do not engage in any muscle-strengthening exercises at all. The proportion (50.3 %) of our study sample reporting performing muscle-strengthening exercises is high compared to other study populations where this proportion varied from 19.3 % ('gym') (Sale et al 2012) to 32.6 % ('resistance training') (Martin Ginis et al 2010a) and 37.6 % ('fitness/resistance training') (Anneken et al 2010). …”

“…In general, it has been reported that PA levels in the SCI population are rather low (Anneken et al 2010;Buchholz et al 2003;Kim et al 2011;Martin Ginis et al 2010a;Rauch et al 2014;Sale et al 2012;Tasiemski et al 2000). The reported PA levels vary according to the types of activities and available information on their frequency, duration, and intensity.…”

Strategies to teach swimming to people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)

“…Therefore, the selection of adequate strategies during the teaching process mediated by the teacher acts to promote the motor function of the swimmer with SCI. This is the assumption for the adaptation process as a medium to encourage various possibilities of movement that could contribute to the process of teaching/learning, improving the quality of living for people with SCI 4 .…”

Quality of Life of Wheelchair Rugby Players

“…There is a decrease in occupational activities in persons with SCI (Schönherr, Groothoff, Mulder, & Eisma, 2005), problematic return to jobs and significantly higher rates of unemployment (Krause, Terza, Saunders, & Dismuke, 2010;McVeigh, Hitzig & Craven, 2009;Schönherr et al, 2005;Tasiemski, Kennedy, Gardner & Taylor, 2005). Persons with SCI have lower rate of participation in physical activities, lower rates in sport participation (Sale et al 2012;Schönherr et al, 2005;Tasiemski, Kennedy, Gardner, & Blaikley, 2004) and higher rates of sedentary activities such as reading, music listening, watching movies, PC games (Tasiemski et al, 2005). SCI makes significant impact on person's lives as only one third of persons with SCI are able to return to jobs they did prior to acquiring SCI (Krause et al, 2010) and majority of them cannot return to the hobbies (Schönherr et al, 2005) or sports (Tasiemski et al, 2004;Urbanski, Bauerfeind & Pokaczajlo, 2013;Wandell, 2010) they did prior to SCI.…”