Muscle strength and thoracic mobility in the spinal cord injuries: Influence of lesion level and physical exercise

Background: Respiratory complications promoted by spinal cord injury (SCI), represents the major causes of morbidity and mortality. However, studies have been conducted with wheelchairs athletes, which report benefits in response to physical exercise, like increase muscle strength, upper limb exercise performance and improved quality of life. Objective: To relate the level of SCI with respiratory variables in sedentary and wheelchair athletes paraplegics and quadriplegics. Methods: Were studied 32 male subjects: 19 athletes with SCI (rugby: 10 athletes with quadriplegically SCI; basketball: 9 athletes with paraplegical SCI) belonging to the active group and 13 subjects who did not practice any kind of exercise comprised the sedentary group (7 sedentary with quadriplegically SCI and 6 sedentary with paraplegical SCI). All volunteers were assessed by maximal static mouth inspiratory pressure (MIP), expiratory pressure (MEP) and cirtometry in the axillary (CA) and xiphoid region (CX). Results: There were strong negative correlations between the level of injury and MIP (r s = -0.88; p < 0.0001), MEP (r s = -0.97; p < 0.0001), CA (r s = -0.88 < 0.0001) and CX (r s = -0.88 < 0.0001) in the sedentary group. No correlations were found in the active group. Conclusion: Respiratory muscle strength and thoracic mobility are related to the level of SCI in sedentary but not in active subjects. Therefore, the results suggest that physical exercise can reduce the influence of lesion level on respiratory function.