Frequency of Neck Disability Among Manual Wheelchair Users Having Injury of Spinal Cord; A Cross Sectional Study

Objective: To determine frequency of neck disability among spinal cord injured patients prone to used manual wheelchairs.Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional was executed after Ethical Approval from the LMDC committee from November 2022 to April 2023.The study was conducted in Ghurki Trust & Teaching Hospital and Lahore General Hospital, Lahore; engaging 65 patients aged 25-50 years with traumatic paraplegic spinal cord injuries, using manual wheelchairs for 3 to 12 months.The study excluded individuals with systemic or degenerative diseases, neck pain resulting from whiplash injury, and those exhibiting medical red flags.Non-probability convenience sampling helps for selection and Neck Disability Index (NDI) used for data collection.SPSS version 26 used for statistical purposes.Results: Out of 65 patients, 66.7% (n=44) were males and 31.8%(n=21) were females.The mean age of study subjects was 37.00±9.394years.The Total Score of the Neck Disability Index showed with mean of 24.78 8.58 years.Hence the percentage of neck disability demonstrated in 65 patients was 3.0% (n=2) with no disability, 9.1% (n=6) mild disability, 30.3% (n=20) moderate disability, 42.4% (n=28) severe disability, 13.6% (n=9) complete disability.Out of 65 patients, 42.4% (n=28) were with severe disability.However; there was no significant association of developing neck disability among spinal cord injury patients with prolonged use of Manual wheelchairs with a p-value <0.05.Conclusion: The study findings indicate a significant frequency of severe neck disability among users of manual wheelchair with traumatic injury of spinal cord without having any significant association with the duration of wheelchair usage.