Respiratory, cardiovascular and metabolic responses during different modes of overground bionic ambulation in persons with motor-incomplete spinal cord injury: A case series
Jochen Kressler, Tracie Wymer, Antoinette Domingo
Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, San Diego State University, 92182 San Diego, USA. E-mail: jkressler@mail.sdsu.edu
DOI: 10.2340/16501977-2281
Lay Abstract
People with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) often have a very limited ability to walk. However, walking is one of the simplest and easiest ways to exercise important systems of your body such as the heart, the blood vessels, lungs and muscles. Since walking involves the large muscles of the leg it is also a great way to burn calories. All of this is impaired in people with SCI. Currently, there are machines called bionic exoskeletons that help people with SCI to stand up and walk. The newer versions can vary assistance so that people with SCI can contribute their own effort to walking if possible. But no one yet knows how effective these new versions are in exercising the body systems mentioned above. We studied 4 people SCI who still had some muscle function. We tested three different levels of assistance given by an exoskeleton walking machine to see how much each exercises the heart, lungs and blood vessel and the number of calories burned. For the fittest person, no matter the amount of assistance, the exercise was not very hard and did not burn a lot of calories. For the other three participants, the exercise was hard to very hard and they burned a lot more calories, but results varied depending on the participant and assistance type. Based on these findings, 3 out of the 4 people we tested could theoretically get substantial health benefits training with the exoskeleton using the right level of assistance and training strategy.
Supplementary content