Comorbidity and physical activity in people with paraplegia: a descriptive cross-sectional study.

STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional study.

SETTING: The study was conducted in the Spinal Cord Injury Unit of the University Vall d'Hebron Hospital and in the Physical Education and Sports Department of the University of Valencia.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to quantify the presence of comorbidities in spinal cord injury (SCI) subjects who did or did not perform regular physical activity (PA) and to identify the relationship between PA and the level of comorbidity.

METHODS: The sample consisted of patients with complete motor SCI (T2-T12), who were fitted with an accelerometer attached to the non-dominant wrist for a period of 1 week. The clinical and blood analytic variables were selected by an expert panel.

RESULTS: In the exploratory analysis, we have found differences in the total number of pathologies between active and inactive patients, with fewer total pathologies in the active patient group. An association was found between the PA level and diabetes mellitus (; P=0.047; φ=0.25). We also observed an association between the cardioprotector level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol and PA level (; P=0.057; Φ0.24).

CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that patients considered active showed lower total comorbidity than inactive patients and higher protection levels against developing cardiovascular comorbidity.