Disabled sports and physiological specificity in persons with spinal cord injury

Abstract

Today, a large proportion of persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) can return to society thanks to advances in biomedical care. Various sports activities are recommended, especially for wheelchair-bound disabled persons with SCI, in order to maintain proper physical fitness. It is important to know sports activities-induced physiological specificity in persons with SCI before recommending sports activities. Natural killer cell activity (NKCA) is commonly used to study immune response during exercise. Interleukin (IL)-6 is produced by contracting skeletal muscles and then released into the circulation; and is considered to mediate the health benefits of exercise against chronic diseases. We investigated the responses of NKCA and IL-6 in SCI persons during arm exercise and a wheelchair marathon race. Similar NKCA and IL-6 responses were found in thoracolumbar SCI persons and able-bodied (AB) persons. On the other hand, changes in NKCA and IL-6 in cervical SCI persons elicited different characteristic patterns compared to thoracolumbar SCI and AB persons.