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Reeve Foundation Grant Will Support Shoulder Fitness Program for Individuals with Paraplegia

Newswise - Nearly 60 percent of persons with paraplegia who are wheelchair users will suffer from shoulder pain that severely hampers their ability to carry out daily activities and propel themselves over different terrains. Though persons with paraplegia (people whose lower bodies are paralyzed) routinely use exercise training in rehabilitation settings, no shoulder training guidelines currently exist for wheelchair users. That will soon change, thanks to the $9,700 Quality of Life Grant from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation grant awarded to Deborah Nawoczenski, professor of physical therapy, and Linda Riek, adjunct faculty, at Ithaca College's Rochester Center. A Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester, Riek is co-principal investigator on the project.

"The program will have an immediate benefit for the community because it will enable individuals with paralysis an opportunity to work out in a fitness program designed specifically for wheelchair users, with an emphasis on healthy shoulder movement patterns," Nawoczenski said. "This program will also provide guidelines to trainers and therapists that can also be implemented in rehabilitation settings."

The "Shoulder Fitness Program" will be developed by Ithaca College physical therapy faculty in association with Pieters Family Life Center, the Rochester region's only wheelchair accessible community fitness facility. The target enrollment for the shoulder fitness program is 40 people. In addition to the grant award, Ithaca College will supply $2,000 for graduate assistant funding. The guidelines are scheduled to be implemented by December 2010.

Established by the late Dana Reeve in 1999, the Reeve Foundation's Quality of Life Grants are awarded twice a year to nonprofit organizations within the United States and Canada that provide services and programs to individuals living with paralysis. Close to 1,600 grants totaling nearly $13 million have been awarded to organizations since the program's inception.

Located on the campus of the Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, Ithaca College's Rochester Center offers graduate students in their final year of the college's doctor of physical therapy program to benefit from faculty instruction at the center as well as the resources at University of Rochester Medical Center and Strong Memorial Hospital and surrounding medical community.

Source: NewsWise