Accelerometer assessment of physical activity in individuals with paraplegia who do and do not participate in physical exercise

Objective: Our main goal was to measure physical activity (PA) in people with paraplegia. Secondarily, we aimed to establish the relationship between being engaged in physical exercise (PE) and reaching the recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) level. We further analyzed the effect of being engaged in PE on the PA levels.Design: Descriptive cross-sectional.Setting: Spanish associations for individuals with spinal cord injury.Participants: Ninety-six manual wheelchair users with chronic paraplegia.Interventions: Participants wore a wrist accelerometer for one week.Outcome Measures: Levels of PA and sedentary behavior. In addition, participants were classified into two groups, exercisers (EG) and non-exercisers (NEG) to analyze the effect of PE enrollment on the variables.Results: For all participants, a mean (SD) of 5,341.70 (966.4) minutes per week were spent engaged in sedentary behaviors, 2,188.99 (723.9) minutes were spent engaged in light activity, and 206.24 (180.0) minutes were s...