Improving Heart Health in Individuals With SCI Using Home-Based Virtual Gaming

Study Summary

What is the ultimate applicability of the research? Individuals with SCI face several challenges when trying to engage in exercise following injury. Barriers to engagement include cost, transportation, and lack of SCI accessible resources. At the same time, individuals with SCI are at risk of developing negative health consequences (e.g., cardiovascular disease) associated with physical inactivity. A critical need exists to improve relevant, accessible, and sustainable home-based exercise interventions for individuals with SCI to lower the risk of developing secondary comorbid diseases from physical inactivity and to promote wellness. This research will investigate a fun and novel in-home virtual reality system aimed toward improving physical fitness of individuals SCI with the ultimate goal of improving physical, emotional, and psychosocial quality of life. Virtual reality gaming has been used for a long time to improve physical fitness, but there have yet to be virtual reality games designed specifically for individuals with SCI. The explicit aim of this research is therefore to develop a therapeutic technology that will be widely accessible to individuals with SCI. What persons with SCI and/or their caregivers will it help, and how will it help them? We aim to provide a readily available exercise platform for individuals with SCI, across a spectrum of physical function. Research has shown that individuals with SCI are particularly prone to be physically inactive. The consequences of physical inactivity have been well documented and include negative outcomes in physical, psychological, and social health with reduced quality of life. For the current study, we will refine our existing virtual reality exercise platform, VR-Move with a focus on non ambulatory individuals with bilaterally preserved C6 function. Our focus on using the exercise platform for this cohort of the SCI population is meant to provide a basis for developing and catering to the platform for high

Primary Outcome

Participants will perform a Price and Campbell upper body ergometer test, to estimate cardiorespiratory exercise capacity. The Price and Campbell upper body ergometer test is a multistage cardiorespiratory measure that begins with an initial 2-minute warm-up period of zero-Watt (W) resistance on an upper body ergometer. Following the initial warm-up period, 30 W of resistance will be applied at a crank rate of 60 rpm for 2 minutes, representing stage one of the test. All subsequent stages are pr

Interventions

• OTHER virtual reality exercise