Indicators of Health and Quality of Life of People with Disabilities – Sitting Volleyball Players. Summary of the Doctoral Thesis

Abstract

One of the most important criteria used to characterise the level of integration of a person with a disability in the society is life quality criteria. The quality of life is determined by the individual’s ability to engage in social activities, including in regular physical activities and sports events. Engagement in different kinds of sports might be difficult or even impossible for people with limited functions, therefore alternative kinds of sports are being developed in the world, uniting them in the Paralympic sports movement. As the Paralympic sports developed, a necessity arouse for a special medical and functional classification system that allows to divide the athletes into groups that correspond their functioning disorders and ensures equal competition for all athletes. For people with limited functions, while integrating into the society and increasing the quality of life, regular engagement in sports activities may cause additional load and traumas, including cumulative traumas, limitations on physical abilities. The aim of the study is to discover how regular sitting volleyball trainings influence health condition, the quality of life and functional abilities of people with disabilities. The study was conducted from 1995 until 2008, was prospective and consists of five sections: 1) analysis of the quality of life of sitting volleyball players, assessing their level of integration in leisure activities; 2) assessment of cardiorespiratory work capacity of sitting volleyball players; 3) assessment of cardiorespiratory work capacity of people who have had amputations at different levels but who are not engaged in sports activities; 4) assessment of the specific sports skills of sitting volleyball players, depending on their sports medical and functional class; 5) Determination of secondary health disorders of sitting volleyball players related with sports activities, including locomotor system traumas. During the present study, it was discovered that: • the physical health aspect of the quality of life for sitting volleyball players is statistically significantly higher than for people who have limb functioning limitations, but who are not engaged into any sports; • sitting volleyball players have better physical functioning and mental health data compared to people who have limb functioning limitations, but who are not engaged into any sports; • sitting volleyball players have higher relative cardiorespiratory work capacity and higher absolute physical work capacity (PWC170) compared with people who have functioning limitations, but who are not engaged into sports. Predisposed risk factors for sitting volleyball players related with functioning limitations and cumulative sports traumas related with sports activities were discovered. The data obtained in the study can be used for safe exercise and competition planning and prophylaxis of secondary health disorders. The five sections of the study include several hundreds of Paralympic volleyball players, representing both genders, from 25 countries of the all the world continents. The study was conducted for a period of 24 years, several dozens of sports medicine specialists volunteered in collection of data, and professors from several universities participated in academic cooperation, representing Rīga Stradiņš University, the University of Tartu (Estonia), Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Jozef Pilsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw (Poland). The fifth section of the study (Determination of the most frequent subjective complaints about the locomotor system and sports-related traumas) is the first prospective long-term study in the world about sports traumatism in a Paralympic sports.