Summer Student Projects-DRRP and RRTC

On Wednesday, August 3, our two undergraduate students for the DRRP and RRTC grants presented their final research projects to the MUSC Office of Graduate Studies.

Allysan Scatterday, a rising senior at the College of Charleston, presented her research titled, "In-home exercise program produces functional outcomes for individual with incomplete spinal cord injury." In her presentation, she discussed a definition and description of spinal cord injury (SCI)including common secondary conditions related to SCI. She also discussed benefits of exercise to individuals with SCI and the personal and environmental barriers experienced that deter exercise. Allysan wanted to describe how to eliminate these barriers to exercise in order to allow individuals with SCI to participate with higher rates in this beneficial activity. She described a case study to explore the effectiveness of an in home physical activity program to reduce environmental barriers to exercise. The nine month home exercise program in the study was found to decrease barriers to exercise while improving the functional outcomes of range of motion, cardiorespiratory fitness, locomotion, and manual muscle testing. Future research can be completed on effectiveness of home exercise programs in order to increase activity levels in this population and decrease the prevalence of secondary conditions.

Leah Snipe, a rising sophomore at Wofford College, presented on, "The prevalence of cardiopathy, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity in persons with acute TSCI." Leah began her presentation with an introduction to traumatic spinal cord injury, cardiopathy, hypertension, and diabetes. She described that previous reearch has illustrated that individuals with TSCI have higher prevalence of cardiopathy, hypertension, and diabetes, several years post injury. The goal of her research was to determine if those individuals hopsitalized from TSCI already have a higher incidence of cardiopathy, hypertension, and diabetes or are at greater risk of developing these conditions. Leah used data from the SC TSCI Registry and database and controlled for injury severity. She found that risk for cardiopathy, hypertension, and diabetes does increase with TSCI, as soon as injury occurs. Obesity is also a risk factor in developing these conditions. Leah recommended addressing obesity in persons with acute TSCI in order to help prevent these secondary conditions. This research also looked at SES and race and found that persons with low SES and minorities are generally less healthy, at higher risk for early mortality, and less likely to receive adequate care. The clinical implications of this research are largely preventive, in that screening needs to be increased in individuals with TSCI that are obese and have already existing cardiopathy, hypertension, and diabetes. Early screening can help prevent the conditions from worsening.