Assessment of Vasomotion of People With Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI), causes loss of supra-spinal control of the sympathetic nervous system and in some cases loss of sensation. As a result, people with SCI have impaired thermoregulatory system and the consequence of this thermoregulatory dysfunction, is that they cannot respond to the environmental changes. All the above lead to dysregulation in vasomotor tone, skeletal muscle shivering and sweating dysfunction. It is well known that skin plays an important role in regulating body temperature and regulates interactions between the environment and human body. A previous study in people with incomplete SCI showed that there are no differences in core temperature between patients with different level of mobility and sensation and different level of lesion, but there are significant differences in skin temperature. As mentioned above people with SCI have an impaired thermoregulatory capacity due to sudomotor and vasomotor dysfunction and that leads to greater thermal strain during rest and exercise when they expose to hot conditions. A previous study that performed exercise in people with SCI, highlights the fact that because of the impaired evaporative heat loss during exercise in hot conditions, they are in great risk. Because of this risk they propose different cooling strategies that promote evaporation such as fans and water spraying. It is therefore important to observe the thermoregulatory function (vasomotion and sudomotor) in people with SCI when they are exposed to different environments (cold, neutral and warm).