Study Finds Scuba Diving Beneficial for Spinal Cord Injuries

posted on Oct 07 by Guest Author in the Advocacy, Disability News, Health, Paralysis Cures, Spinal Cord Injury, Veterans, Wheelchair Sports category

A recent pilot study presented at the Paralyzed Veterans of America conference in Orlando, Florida found that scuba offers some benefit for people with spinal cord injuries. The study found that scuba diving helped improve sensitivity to touch, muscle movement, and eased symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in persons with spinal cord injuries.

Ten paralyzed veterans participated in the study. Each vet uses a wheelchair due to spinal cord injuries incurred over 10 years ago, and each underwent scuba diving certification. In addistion, their motor control, muscle spasticity, light touch and pinprick sensitivity, and post-traumatic and obsessive-compulsive stress disorder symptoms were gauged during pre-dive tests.

Eight out of ten of the vets finished the program. Among them, researchers observed a reduction in muscle spasticity and an increase in sensitivity to light touch and pinpricks. There was also an average 80 percent decrease in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, which researchers could not entirely attribute to the beautiful Caribbean setting in which the scuba training was performed.

The study’s co-author, Dr. Adam Kaplin, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Services at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, stated that the findings suggest that scuba diving helps restore some psychological and neurological function in paraplegics. Kaplin cautioned that these results are preliminary and more study is required. He did have some theories on why water and weightlessness have a positive effect on people with spinal cord injuries. Water provides people with spinal cord injuries with buoyant resistance training that’s not found on land. They can breathe more freely when in water because they’re not sitting in a chair. Kaplin believes the study participants may have also benefited from their tissues getting additional oxygenation from pressurized air, which could have attributed to the improved sensitivity and muscle tone.

This study was brainchild of a former Johns Hopkins patient, Cody Unser, daughter of two-time Indianapolis 500 race winner, Al Unser, Jr., and granddaughter of four-time Indy 500 race winner, Al Unser, Sr. When still just a tween, Unser (now 21) founded the Cody Unser First Step Foundation, which raises money and awareness for people with spinal cord-related paralysis. She has been very pro-active in helping to find a cure for paralysis since becoming a paraplegic after contracting transverse myelitis when she was 12-years-old. Transverse myelitis is an inflammation of the spinal cord that causes muscle weakness or paralysis, along with pain and sensory issues. Unser was left paralyzed from the chest down from the disease. She told Kaplin that she and other paraplegics recovered some feeling in their limbs after going scuba diving.

Sources:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/17/news/la-heb-scuba-paralysis-20110917

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/scuba_diving_improves_function_of_body_mind_in_vets_with_spinal_cord_injury

http://corpsfitness.smugmug.com/IM-ABLE-Foundation/Cayman-Islands-with-Cody-Unser/

http://www.cufsf.org/