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Spinal cord injury exercise guidelines

An international group of 29 researchers, clinicians, community organisations and people with spinal cord injury (SCI) have developed scientific guidelines to inform people with SCI how much exercise is necessary for important fitness and health benefits.

This project has, for the first time, produced international SCI-specific exercise guidelines based on gold-standard practices. A total of 13,115 published research studies testing the effects of physical activity on fitness and health among adults with SCI were reviewed. International researchers, clinicians, community organisations, adults with SCI and knowledge translation specialists deliberated this evidence to agree on the effective frequency, intensity and duration of exercise. Final guidelines were produced based on further market research with adults with SCI and clinicians who assessed the guidelines for usefulness, appropriateness and clarity.

This process was led by Professor Kathleen Martin Ginis (University of British Columbia, Canada) and Professor Vicky Tolfrey (Loughborough University, UK).

This webpage is dedicated to the dissemination of the scientific guidelines to European and Asian countries. For information about ongoing work in Canada please visit www.sciactioncanada.ca

If you work in a country not listed below and would like to get in touch about working with us to translate the guidelines into your own language please contact ncsem-education@lboro.ac.uk

Guidelines in European languages

Guidelines in Asian languages

It has been recognised that there is a need for the guidelines to be tailored to the language, research, needs and preferences of adults with SCI and SCI clinicians in Asian countries. To find out more about this project and to download the guidelines in Japanese, Korean, Thai and Indonesian visit our Asian webpage.

Guidelines in Arabic

The spinal cord injury guidelines have also been translated into Arabic to help meet the language and research needs of adults with SCI and SCI clinicians in Arab countries. To find out more about these guidelines visit our Arab countries webpage.