Soroush Hasanaki Pour1, Hassan Shakeri2, Amir Masoud Arab3*
Introduction and objective:Respiratory disorders, after damage to the spinal cord, are considered the most common cause of death in patients with spinal cord injury. The evaluation of the respiratory parameters by using spirometry is a convenient way to check the respiratory function. The aim of the study is to examine and compare the respiratory parameters in patients with different levels of spinal cord injury by using a spirometer.
Materials and methods :In this study, spirometry test was performed for 163 patients with spinal cord injury (76 women and 87 men) covered by a home health care team in Kahrizak charity of Tehran as well as a control group of 192 healthy subjects (81 women and 111 men). The spirometer device, BIONET SPM-300 was used and three respiratory tests, FVC, SVC and MVV were carried out by the subjects. Respiratory parameters of FEV1, FVC, FEV1 / FVC, FEF25-75%, PEF, TV and MVV were measured. Analysis of variance was used for data analysis.
Findings :Respiratory parameters in spinal cord injury patients was much lower than the control group (P<0.05). All indicators in all three regions of the cervical and thoracic and lumbar injury had a statistically significant difference with the control group except the indicator of TV and FEV1 / FVC in the lumbar group that respectively had P = 0.10 and P = 0 . 49 compared to the control group.
Conclusion :In summary, in this study it was shown that the damage to the spinal cord and its subsequent neuromuscular weakness will cause a dramatic drop in respiratory parameters among patients who suffering from this damage. The results of this study show that as the levels of damage become higher and the neurological conditions of patients become worse, all under study respiratory parameters will be significantly decreased. Instead, these changes will become smaller in lower levels of damage.
