Abstract des Autors

The physical activity gains importance for humans with a disability in rehabilitation, prevention up to high-performance sports. Parameters like the muscle enzymes creatin kinase (Ck), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) or urea have become more valuable in sports medical laboratory diagnostics. Until now parameters of muscular or metabolic stress, of acute and chronic overstrain or overtraining states have not been studied sufficiently in spinal cord injured athletes. Athletes with low paraplegia showed significantly higher Ck-concentrations than spinal cord injured persons with high lesion levels. This Ck levels were outside of the normal range. Athletes with tetraplegia or high paraplegia exhibited higher urea values before exercise. The muscle enzymes Ck and LDH increased in all examined groups due to the exhaustive step-wise incremental wheelchair ergometry, while a change of the urea concentration was not found. In all examined groups a leukocyte-stimulating effect of physical exercise could be observed, which was differently pronounced in dependence on the lesion level. Exhaustive incremental wheelchair exercise led to comparable changes in spinal cord injured athletes and in non handicapped control persons. These changes were partly dependent on the lesion level. Therefore it can be assumed that these parameters can be used to evaluate muscular and metabolic stress in spinal cord injured athletes despite the impairment of the peripheral sympathetic system, the smaller innervated muscle mass or the everyday movement in the wheelchair. Verf.-Referat