Breathing treatments may help people with certain types of spinal cord injuries walk longer distances at faster speeds, new Canadian research indicates, Newsmax Health reports.

After the low-oxygen treatment, people with less severe spinal cord injuries were able to walk approximately 33 feet about four seconds faster than those on a placebo treatment.

"The rehabilitation world after a spinal cord injury can be frustrating and limited," said study author Randy Trumbower, an assistant professor in the division of physical therapy at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. «Someone may be able to cross the street right now, but can they do it in enough time? Or someone might be able to get to the grocery store, but do they have the endurance to shop?"

Almost two-thirds of spinal cord injuries may not function as they used to, but they are not completely severed, that is why, someone with an incomplete spinal injury may still be able to walk, but not in the same way they could before the injury.

Low oxygen levels cause the release of a growth factor that's known to help repair nerves and improve their plasticity, said Dr. Michael Fehlings, the co-author of an editorial accompanying the study.

The current study was designed to see if brief periods of low oxygen could induce these types of reactions in humans.

Nineteen people with incomplete spinal cord injuries participated in the study. Everyone could walk at least one step without assistance from another person.

The volunteers were placed into one of two groups. One group would receive the intermittent low-oxygen treatment and the other would receive a sham treatment. Two weeks later, the groups switched treatments.

People who got the oxygen treatment improved their walking speed by 3.8 seconds over 33 feet compared to those given the placebo treatment. They also were able to walk about 328 feet farther in a period of six minutes than those who were treated with the sham treatment.

"[This was] a small but well-designed [study] that showed people with a relatively mild form of spinal cord injury can have some recovery with [low-oxygen treatment]," said Fehlings, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto.