In my dotage, I’ve come to enjoy reading peer-review medical research papers with titles like “Psychologic Factors and Risk of Mortality After Spinal Cord Injury” or “Comparison of the influence of different rehabilitation programmes on clinical, spirometric, and spiroergometric parameters in patients with multiple sclerosis.”

Okay, these titles don’t shout, “Read me now!” nor is the prose the heart-pounding John Grisham variety. But despite the dry-as-dust presentation, the information is rich and valuable. With so much cant in the air these days in all areas of public discourse, from cannabis to creationism, it’s refreshing to read material that is dispassionate and devoid of bully posturing. These reports are almost bracing in their quest for objective veracity.

The hard science research into the causes and possible cures for SCI injuries gets the biggest headlines, but I gravitate toward an area of inquiry I can usually grasp and perhaps profit from – the psychology of paralysis, or the often fuzzy interplay of mind and body in grappling with this condition. Slogging through these dense research reports is a quest for making the topic a little less fuzzy.

Sometimes the data points to the most obvious conclusions. For instance, when it comes to achieving the optimal state of being when paralyzed, the scientific literature is pretty clear – stay healthy. This is a simple dictate that a schoolboy can grasp. If you are depressed, for instance, almost a statistical inevitability at some point, go find relief in one form or another. Beyond the specific medical problems that demand specific medical solutions, from spasticity to autonomic dysreflexia, the best life prescription for SCI is to eat healthy, keep moving your body, do all you can to manage pain and infection, pay no attention to the often distorted presumptions of others (as in, “You poor dear!”), and realize there is probably nothing that should keep you from living until 85 or so.

But wait a minute, Dr. Phil. There’s a lot more to it than that, as the one report after another points out. There is a major impediment to such a rational course of action – namely, what goes on in our heads.

In an earlier blog, I mentioned a study examining the question of why those with SCI injuries have a premature mortality rate. On purely physiological grounds, this doesn’t make much sense, at least in the US. We are long past the medical age where you became paralyzed and died of some bacterial invasion three weeks later. You get an infection now, there’s probably an antibiotic to kill it. At least in my own case, a T-10 para blessed with very little neurological pain, I have problems that are irritating as all heck, but generally controllable. And I’m probably not alone.

The researchers into premature mortality located two personality traits and one habit of mind that might have a significant effect on lifespan. The two traits are a) sensation-seeking, or risk taking, and b) Neuroticism-Anxiety. Sensation-seeking/risk-taking can mean everything from shooting heroin to a sloppy, inflection-baiting bathroom regimen. Neuroticism is the overcapacity for negative feelings – feeling weak and helpless leads to lethargy leads to feeling weaker and more helpless leads to ill health.

As the study points out, these are psychological patterns that are often hard-wired in our brains and difficult to change, whether you’ve experienced a trauma like SCI or not. There is no magic pill for someone who invites serious health problems by the way they live. Lots of people are on a very slow course of suicide disguised as “If I want a drink, damn it, I’ll have one!”

The habit of mind mentioned is a construct called “Purpose in Life,” or PIL. This is as simple as it sounds. Find something that gives your life meaning and pursue it. To invent a purpose for living is something within the capacity of most of us, no matter your form of transportation. Because the absence of PIL is patently unhealthy, and because there are so many avenues to find it, from stamp collecting to Occupy Wall Street, the researchers see the possibility of change here, or in their language, “a wide range of intervention options.”

The effect of PIL came up in another study, one trying to find an observable link between “a purpose driven life and decreased risk of AD (Alzheimer’s disease) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).” The authors found clear evidence from previous studies that strongly validate that link, then took it a step further. What if such goal-setting behavior might lead to “actual physiological changes that prove to be neuroprotective”? “Neuroprotective” means that a life purpose creates biochemical mechanisms that reduce the risk of cognitive decline. You find a goal, your brain gets stronger.

And finally, in a study focused on exercise and people with MS, a kind of corollary of PIL shows up: self-efficacy, or “the perceived ability to complete a specific behavior.” It turns out that people with MS – and perhaps people with SCI as well – often lack the belief that they are even capable of physical exertion. They give up before they start. When encouraged to get in shape, the general population answers back, “I don’t have time.” Those with MS in the study answered back, “I can’t do it.” Their worry was their ability to overcome their physical imitations, the fear of getting hurt or exhausted. That concern constitutes a major barrier to exercise and training.

However you mix those two ingredients – purpose in life and perceived self-efficacy -- it’s probably worth more of your time to ponder these “positive” markers than the thoughts of sadness and despair and depression that usually go with SCI disorders. And since it is imperative to your longevity and maybe even your brain function to stay healthy, you might consider your health to be Purpose #1. Whatever other purposes you come up with, they will all be greatly enhanced, say the guys and gals in the lab coats, by the PIL of physical well-being.

© 2011 Allen Rucker |

Purchase Allen's book:
The Best Seat in the House:
How I Woke Up One Tuesday and Was Paralyzed for Life