Pulmonary Function in Cervical Spinal Cord Injured Men: Influence of Age and Height

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influences of age and height on pulmonary function in cervical spinal cord injury patients and to suggest the reference value of Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) with respect to each level of injury. METHOD: One hundred eighteen subjects with complete cervical spinal cord injury underwent PFT. Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) and Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second (FEV1) were measured and percentages of normal predictive values were also calculated. RESULTS: Age, height and injury level were determinants of FVC and FEV1. But only injury level affected the percen-tages of FVC and FEV1 predictive values. The mean FVC of C4, C5, C6, C7, C8 tetraplegic subjects were 1.78 L, 2.00 L, 2.20 L, 2.74 L, 2.94 L respectively. The mean FEV1 of C4, C5, C6, C7, C8 tetraplegic subjects were 1.64 L, 1.83 L, 2.08 L, 2.59 L, 2.74 L respectively. CONCLUSION: Age and height should be considered when interpreting PFT of tetraplegic patients. The reference values suggested would help to evaluate the severity of pulmonary function loss in complete cervical spinal cord injury patients.

Effects of Temperature on Motor Unit Action Potentials

This study was performed to evaluate of temperature effects on motor unit action potentials by automatic method in twenty healthy adults. Twenty separate motor unit action potentials were recorded in the biceps brachii with concentric needle electrodes at the three different skin temperatures. The skin temperature of the arm was cooled with coldpack below 24oC and warmed with infrared above 38.5oC. The measured parameters of motor unit action potentials were amplitude, duration, area, spike duration, spike area and number of phases and turns. As the skin temperature was decreased, all parameters except number of turns were increased(p<0.05). And the larger changes were developed by cooling than warming. At three temperature settings, rise time was inverse relationship with amplitude and number of phases and turns. And in general other parameters of motor unit action potentials showed significant positive correlation. Therefore the temperature is a very important considering factor and must be standardized or controlied during analysis of motor unit action potentials.