EFFECTS OF ADAPTED CANOEING ON THE CARDIOPULMONARY SYSTEM OF PARAPLEGICS

ABSTRACT Introduction: Cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). Physical training can be an alternative therapy to prevent or mitigate cardiopulmonary complications in this population. Objective: To evaluate the effects of training with adapted canoeing, consisting of combined exercise (aerobic and strength) on heart rate variability (HRV), pulmonary function and respiratory muscle strength in paraplegics due to SCI. Methods: The study included six paraplegics, five men and one woman, average age of 31.50 ± 7.68 years and mean body mass index of 24.00 ± 1.13 kg/m², level of injury T4 to T9, who underwent training with adapted canoeing for three months. Subjects were evaluated by HRV, spirometry and manovacuometer before and after the training period. Results: After training there was no significant increase in RR (12.7%), SDNN (24.3%), rMSSD (50.0%), pNN50 (478.6%), LF (ms²) (53.3%), HF (ms²) (158.8%) SD1 (50.6%), SD2 (23.2%) and SampEn (20.2%). The HF indices (un) and LF/HF showed no significant decrease of 5.7 and 7.0%, respectively. The highest breathing gains were for MVV (9.7%), MIP (8.5%) and MEP (11.0%), being however not significant. Conclusion: The proposed protocol of three months of adapted canoeing failed to promote significant effects on cardiopulmonary parameters evaluated in paraplegic subjects after SCI, but we observe the trend of improvement in most of these parameters. In this sense, probably the training stimulus was insufficient.