Effect of Specific Transverse Abdominal Muscle Strengthening and Conventional Therapy for Trunk Control in Paraplegic Subjects

As trunk control is the major restraint in quality of life in paraplegia, this project emphasizes on the effect of specific transverse abdominal muscle strengthening exercises for trunk control. So, the present study was conducted to find out the combined effect of conventional exercises with specific transverse abdominal muscle strengthening on trunk control.

20 subjects of clinically diagnosed paraplegia having impairment of trunk control were recruited. They were allocated into 2 groups and treated with conventional exercises along with transverse abdominal muscle strengthening for trunk control regularly for 5 weeks. Exercises were given in progression. Primarily passive exercise followed by active assisted in progression for both the lower limb of that subject was asked to do it actively. The objective outcome measures Trunk control test and manual muscle testing were used to assess the trunk control pre-treatment and at the end of 5 weeks.

Statistical analysis was done using paired and unpaired't” test. The results showed statistically significant improvement in trunk control in group A as compared to group B (p<0.001).

This study found that conventional therapy along with specific transverse abdominal strengthening is effective in improving trunk control in paraplegic subjects. Specific transverse abdominal muscle strengthening along with the conventional treatment shows speedy recovery than the only conventional therapy when given at the acute and sub-acute stages of traumatic spinal cord injury.(TSCI)