Article

Spinal cord injury (SCI), damage to spinal cord, influences the
ability of the subjects to stand and walk. Moreover, they have some problems such
as osteoporosis, muscle spasm, joint contracture and bowel and bladder function.
These subjects use various orthoses and undergo different rehabilitation
programmes to restore their ability. It is controversial whether use of
aforementioned methods improves the physiological health of SCI individuals and
improves their ability to ambulate or not. Therefore, the aim of this review was
to investigate the effectiveness of assistive devices to restore their
physiological health and their functional ability in patients with SCI. METHOD: A
search was done in some databases such as Medline, Embasco, and ISI Web of
sciences between 1960 and 2013. The quality of studies was assessed using the
Down and Black tool. RESULTS: Two hundred articles were found based on the
selected key words. Sixty papers were selected for final analysis, of which 35
and 45 focused on benefits of standing and walking, performance of SCI during
standing and walking with various systems, respectively. CONCLUSION: Although
there was lots of variation between the studies based on the number of subjects,
level of lesion, type of lesion and time post injury, it can be concluded that
use of various orthoses neither improve the abilities of subjects to stand and
walk nor improve their physiological health. It may be concluded that the use of
other methods of exercise may have more physiological benefits for SCI subjects.

Langue : ANGLAIS