Towards parameters and protocols to recommend FES-Cycling in cases of paraplegia: a preliminary report


Submitted: 13 June 2016
Accepted: 13 June 2016
Published: 13 September 2016
Abstract Views: 1455
PDF: 900
HTML: 310
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

Functional Electrical Stimulation assisted cycling (FES-Cycling) is increasingly becoming an alternative option recommended to people with spinal cord injury struggling with paraplegia and interested in practicing sports. In order to propose preconditions to guide FES-Cycling recommendation, we aimed to investigate some features and their potential relationships with responsiveness to Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES). Fourteen volunteers attended a public recruitment forum to be assessed about their responsiveness through the 16-sessions of NMES. Volunteers were separated in two groups (responsive and non-responsive to NMES) which were investigated in the light of some personal, clinical, structural and functional features. Fifty seven percent of the initial sample responded to electrical stimulation with a visual contraction. This responsive group was predominantly composed by subjects presenting traumatic spinal cord injuries above T12 vertebral level. Only two subjects became responsive at the 3rd and 16th sessions. Among the observed features, the etiology and level of injuries seems to be more associated to responsiveness. Our observations seem to indicate that subjects with traumatic spinal cord injury above T12 level were the best potential candidates for FES-cycling.

Araujo Guimarães, J., Oliveira da Fonseca, L., Cardoso dos Santos-Couto-Paz, C., Padilha Lanari Bó, A., Fattal, C., Azevedo-Coste, C., & Fachin-Martins, E. (2016). Towards parameters and protocols to recommend FES-Cycling in cases of paraplegia: a preliminary report. European Journal of Translational Myology, 26(3). https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2016.6085

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations