Sports-medical assessment for athletes with a disability

The purpose of this article is to describe a Sports-Medical Assessment Protocol (SMAP) for athletes with a disability. The purposes of the SMAP are to identify medical problems and therapeutic goals for supplementary training programmes for athletes with a disability, and to provide baseline data for future follow up. The SMAP includes an interview, cardiorespiratory assessment and physical and functional examination. Data were collected from assessment protocols of 14 male athletes with various neurological disorders who qualified to participate in the Atlanta Paralympic Games in 1996. Nine of the athletes had some range of motion (ROM) limitations, one had shoulder pain and one low back pain following physical stress. Two athletes with postpolio presented muscle fasciculation and one of them also presented bilateral Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Based on these results we concluded that utilizing the SMAP may contribute to trainers' and athletes' (with a disability) awareness of the physical needs of elite athletes as well as participants in leisure sport activities.