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Home / 2017 / September / 20 / Regular exercise benefits those with spinal cord injuries

Regular exercise benefits those with spinal cord injuries

September 20, 2017

Regular exercise benefits those with spinal cord injuries

Conclusive evidence is supported by hundreds of studies, according to UBC researcher

What’s true for the general population is doubly true for those living with disabilities.

New research, led by UBC Okanagan Professor Kathleen Martin Ginis, has determined that exercise is essential for people living with disabilities—especially those with spinal cord injuries.

A professor with UBC Okanagan’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, Martin Ginis is the founding director of SCI Action Canada, a national alliance of organizations and university-based researchers working to improve physical activity in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). As part of her work, her team completed a comprehensive study that concludes routine exercise improves the overall health and fitness in adults with spinal cord injury.

“Our research is a synthesis of every study published looking at the effect of exercise on fitness or cardio-metabolic health outcomes for people with spinal cord injury,” Martin Ginis explains. “There is now conclusive evidence that exercise leads to improvements in fitness for people with SCI and we have emerging evidence that exercise can also reduce cardiometabolic risk factors for people with SCI. Our review also identified the types and amounts of exercise that lead to these benefits.”

Martin Ginis describes cardiometabolic health as a cluster of risk factors connected to illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even obesity. Her team looked at more than 200 previously published studies; all of which examined the effects of exercise interventions (e.g., cardio, strength-training) on cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength, bone health, body composition and cardiovascular risk factors.

“This research is important because it provides an evidence base for developing exercise guidelines for adults with spinal cord injuries,” Martin Ginis says. “This is a significant step toward increasing exercise activity rates in a segment of the population that faces tremendous barriers to exercise participation.”

Martin Ginis’s latest research was recently published in Neurology and funded by the Rick Hansen Institute and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Kathleen Martin Ginis is a professor in UBC Okanagan’s School of Heath and Exercise Sciences.

UBC Professor Kathleen Martin Ginis.

Media Contact

Patty Wellborn
Media Relations Strategist
University Relations

The University of British Columbia
Okanagan campus
Tel: 250 317 0293
E-mail: patty.wellborn@ubc.ca

Content type: Media Release
More content from: Faculty of Health and Social Development, School of Health and Exercise Sciences

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About UBC Okanagan

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory the campus resides. The most established and influential global rankings all consistently place UBC in the top five per cent of universities in the world, and among the top three Canadian universities.

The Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley. For more visit ok.ubc.ca.

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