Effects of Upper Limb Exercises on Physical Capacity and Heart Function in Quadriplegics

Introduction: wheelchairs are the prime mobility aid of persons with spinal cord injuries. manualwheelchair propulsion puts a lot of demand on the cardiopulmonary as well as the skeletal system. themain purpose of the study was to compare the effects of both arm ergometry training and progressiveresistance exercise training of upper limbs on resting heart rate and distance covered during wheelchairpropulsion in paraplegics.method: a convenience sample of 30 male subjects took were randomly assigned to two groups.participants were spinal cord injured patients recruited from the indian spinal injuries centre, new delhi.each group consisted of 15 subjects. group 1 received arm ergometry training and group 2 receivedprogressive resistance exercise training. the resting heart rate and distance covered during wheelchairpropulsion in a 3 minutes task of the wheelchair circuit was measured before and after 4 weeks oftraining.results: the post intervention resting heart rate and distance covered during wheelchair propulsion after4 weeks between the two groups showed significant differences. in group 1, resting heart rate was77.53±3.52 beats/min and in group 2 resting heart rate was 82.33±3.69 beats/min (mean±sd). in group 1,the distance covered during wheelchair propulsion was 305.19±17.21 meters and in group 2 it was250.71+20.59 meters.conclusion: the arm ergometry training may be a better choice of exercise for improving thecardiovascular and functional aspect of spinal cord injury patients who are dependent on wheelchairs formobility.