This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Managing Pain After Spinal Cord Injury. Barbara Lutz, R.N., research assistant, discusses Does Exercise Prevent or Reduce Pain in SCI Patients.

The study that we’re using the exercises in that is for persons with shoulder pain that have been injured a year or longer, and we’re hoping that to show that the exercises help lessen or totally get rid of the pain for them just by strengthening the muscles and the tendons in the shoulder. The exercises were chosen, they were done in another study out in California. And because they are specific to the shoulder, that’s why we chose these exercises. They’re done with a resistant band and a light hand weight, three of them are done with resistant bands and it’s to help strengthen the muscles, and the tendons of the shoulder. We have a control group that just gets education only on the Anatomy and Physiology of the Shoulder, and how they should be moving or doing things. And that is all done by them watching a video. And they are given a pamphlet, and these subjects come back in 12 weeks, and we do a second set of ultrasounds. And then the people that are exercising can chose to stop the exercises or continue them and then they come back in an additional four weeks and we do another set of questionnaires, and ultrasounds hoping to show that exercise helps improve or lessen the shoulder pain as opposed to just the education.

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