MUSCULOSKELETAL COMPLAINTS AMONG PARA-ATHLETES IN HUNGARY

A. Mayer^1,2, A. Várnagy³, F. Szabó-Wiesner¹, N.A. Horváth¹, K. Törös², A. Urr², G. Szendrő²

¹Semmelweis University, Department of Physiotherapy, Budapest, Hungary, ²Hungarian Paralympic Committee, Budapest, Hungary, ³Semmelweis University, Department of Orthopedics, Budapest, Hungary

Background: Due to their congenital or acquired disabilities, para-athletes can be considered a high-risk population in terms of acute and overuse musculoskeletal injuries.

Purpose: The purpose is to present the results of a questionnaire survey created as the first step of the prevention program of the Hungarian Paralympic Committee.

Methods: In the questionnaire, we asked about the circumstances of the athletes' disability, their current state of health, their training load and their injuries. We investigated whether injury prevention methods are used. We used the Survio online questionnaire interface to collect the data, in compliance with data protection rules.The group of participants consisted of 22 female and 56 male elite para-athletes, aged 36,4±12.2 years. Disability was congenital in 29 cases and acquired in 49 cases. They played 14 different sports, therefore, we have grouped them based on the characteristics of the sport. Data analysis was performed with the Statistica for Windows 13.5v program. We performed descriptive statistics, frequency calculations, t-test and Chi-square test. The significance level was defined as <0.05.

Results: 30 athletes belonged to the wheelchair group (handball, basketball, tennis, fencing), 21 to the non-wheelchair group (running, triathlon, table tennis), 8 to the rowing group, 5 were swimmers and 14 played other different sports. The wheelchair group trains significantly fewer days and hours per week than the non-wheelchair group (p=0,033 and p=0,03122). At the time of the examination, 44 athletes reported one or two musculoskeletal complaints. The frequency of the two most common complaints by body region was as follows: upper limb (21+10), lower limb (13+8) and trunk (8+7), head and neck (2+6). Among those reporting pain, on the base of the most common pain, shoulder pain was significantly more common in the wheelchair group, but lower extremity pain was less common than in the non-wheelchair group (p=0.0211 and p=0.0006). 8% missed sport for more than 3 months, 27% missed 1 week to 3 months, due to complaints. 28,2% of athletes do not do injury prevention activities, the others do it individually or with their team. 28,2 % are conducted by a physiotherapist in injury prevention. 24.3% periodically participate in institutional rehabilitation.

Conclusions: Musculoskeletal complaints, similar to healthy ones, are also characteristic of sports among para-athletes as well. It is necessary to pay attention to their prevention.

Implications: The extremely heterogeneous sample only partially enables the development of a group sport-specific program, but our questionnaire is suitable for the first screening of athletes, after which the physical examination, the type of disability and the knowledge of the given sport can together determine the prevention tasks to be applied.

Funding acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Hungarian Paralympic Committee.

Keywords:
Musculoskeletal injury
Para-athletes
Prevention

Topics:
Sport & sports injuries
Disability & rehabilitation
Musculoskeletal

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: This study lawfully complies and approved by the ethical codex of the Hungarian Paralympic Committee