Dynamic balance and level of lesion in spinal cord injured patients

This study investigated differences in the dynamic balance of patients with different levels of spinal cord injury (SCI) as well as the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the modified functional reach test (MFRT). Twenty non-standing Spinal Cord Injured patients (13 males and 7 females) with mean age of 43.15 years (S.D = 10.03 years) participated in the study. They were categorised into three groups based on the level of spinal cord lesion. Group 1 comprised of 8 subjects with C5-T1, quadriplegia, group 2 comprised of 6 subjects with T6-T8 paraplegia and group 3 comprised of 6 subjects with T10-L1 paraplegia. The dynamic balance of all subjects was assessed using the modified functional reach test. The data were summarized using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation with further analysis using ANOVA and Pearson product correlation coefficient. The subjects with paraplegia showed higher functional reach (dynamic balance) than the quadriplegics but there was no significant difference in the functional reach values among the three groups. The ICC for MFRT was high and ranged from 0.981 to 0.992. The result of this study therefore seems to suggest that the MFRT cannot be used to classify patients with different levels of SCI.