Role of Biokinetics Rehabilitation among Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) Patients

Abstract

Spinal cord rehabilitation is a complex and consuming pathology, requiring the skillsets of numerous experts to ensure optimal treatment. To this end, the expertise of an exercise therapist (biokineticist) can play a significant role in health maintenance, as well as in the prevention of the co-morbidities often experienced by this population (elevated risk for metabolic syndrome and coronary heart disease associated with SCI), positively improving patients’ overall quality of life. Biokinetics can furthermore help to lower cardiometabolic risks through the prescription of individualized exercise programs and by working in conjunction with other members of the patients’ health team. Physically active spinal cord injured individuals who use their wheelchairs as an exercise machine can benefit from the expertise of a biokineticist as far as these physically active spinal cord injured individuals often experience upper limb neuro-musculoskeletal overuse injuries. In so far as biokineticists are final-phase rehabilitation exercise therapists who prescribe structured physical activity to improve the physical and physiological conditioning of the patient, they are similar to other exercise therapists, such kinesiotherapists, physical therapists, or physiotherapists, and function within a multi-disciplinary rehabilitation team to improve the quality of life of a spinal cord injured individual.