Imaging Techniques of Bone, Mass and Fat in Disabilities

Disability leads to immobilisation associated with profound changes in body composition. The potential risks involved with these changes i.e. loss of lean tissue mass (LM) and bone mineral density (BMD) vs. gain in fat mass (FM) in body composition have implications for the health of the disabled individuals. Body fat has been identified as a significant predictor of mortality in humans making body composition measurement to quantify nutritional and health status an important issue for human health. Moreover, some disorders such as carbohydrate intolerance, insulin resistance, lipid abnormalities, and heart disease occur prematurely and at a higher prevalence in paraplegic populations may be related to adverse changes in body composition that result from immobilization and skeletal muscle denervation. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present imaging techniques for bone-mineral density, bone-mineral content, and bone-mineral-free lean and fat tissue mass alterations of ambulatory and non-ambulatory subjects with disabilities of the central nervous system.