Correlations Between Physiological and Self-Report Measures of Daily Physical Activity Time and Intensity in Adults With Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) can alter physiological responses to acute physical activity (PA), which may influence perceptions and reporting of PA intensity. We examined correlations between physiological and perceptual self-report measures of daily PA in individuals with SCI. Participants completed an assessment of peak aerobic-exercise capacity to determine individualized mild-, moderate-, and vigorous-intensity PA oxygen-uptake ( VO2 ) cut points, wore a portable system that measured VO2, and completed the Physical Activity Recall Assessment for people with SCI. Time engaged in combined moderate to vigorous PA recorded by portable monitoring and self-report were significantly correlated (r = .659, p = .027). There were no associations between metabolic monitoring and equivalent self-report outcomes within individual PA-intensity levels. These findings highlight challenges people with SCI may have differentiating the intensity of PA, which may be related to the way self-report measures describe sensations associated with each intensity. Whether these findings are specific to SCI-related psychophysiology remains unclear.