LIFE QUALITY OF SPINAL CORD INJURED

Introduction The spinal cord injury is one of the most disabling syndromes that affect not only young adults with significant social and financial repercussions. People with have partial or total loss of motor, sensitive, autonomous function and complications in their organic system (Maynard et al., 1997). The outcomes of this trauma interfere in the quality of life and the functional capacity of these people, characterizing a dependence on other people´s care and limitations that will go on for the rest of their lives (Cafer et al., 2005). Therefore, the aim of this study was to check the level of quality of life in men with spinal cord injury that practice or not physical activity in institutions of the Federal District-Brazil. Methods Data was collected from 30 men with of traumatic etiology, divided in active (N=16) and sedentary (N=14), ranging from 20 a 60 years old. To collect data, instruments like the SF-36 (medical Outcomes study 36-Item short-Form Health Survey) (Ciconelli et al., 1999) and the survey for the diagnosis of the level of physical activity of the aim population (Matsudo et al., 2000) were used. To the data analyses the frequency, charts, central tendency measurements (average) of dispersion (standard deviation) were realized. For the tests, levels of significance of 5% were used. Results The age range was 41-50 years old (36,6%) and the average time of injury was 20-30 years (36,6%); As the cause of the injury, the prevalence is fire guns (40%), in its vast majority of injury are total (73,3%) with the predominance of the thoracic level of injury (76.6%). Discussion In relation to the survey the mean domain scores of the SF-36 of spinal cord injuries are presented low values, however, the dominance of functional capacity of the SF-36 of the medullar disabled people that practice physical activities is significantly higher than in relation to sedentary ones. The quality of life is closely related to the lifestyle of the person with cord injury, thus, interventions like physical activity cam promote the improvement of the functional independency and quality of life.

References Maynard, F.M. et al. International Standards for Neurological and Functional Classification of Spinal Cord Injury; Spinal Cord, 35, 266 ± 274,1997.

Cafer, C.L. et al. Nursing diagnosis and proposed interventions for patients with spinal cord injury. Acta Paulista Nursing, V.18, nº4. p 347-53, 2005.

Ciconelli, R. et al. Translation to Portuguese and validation of the generic assessment of quality of life SF-36 (Brazil SF-36). Brazilian Journal of Rheumatology, V. 39, p 144-150, 1999.

Matsudo, S.M., Matsudo, V.K.R., Barros, N. TL. Impact of aging on anthropometric, metabolic and neuromotor fitness. Rev. Bras Cience and Mov, 8:21-32., 2000.