Elsevier

Gait & Posture

Volume 62, May 2018, Pages 355-358
Gait & Posture

Full length article
Gait and functionality of individuals with visual impairment who participate in sports

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2018.03.049Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We compared gait in visually impaired athletes (VI) and sighted individuals (SG).

  • Self-selected walking speed and muscular endurance were similar between groups.

  • Static balance was reduced in VI, but similar to SG with eyes closed.

  • Fear of falling was greater in VI than in SG, but less than previously reported.

  • Sport-based interventions attenuate impaired functional mobility and balance.

Abstract

Background

Individuals with visual impairment (VI) have often been observed to walk slower than individuals with unimpaired vision. These observations might be confounded by typical low levels of physical activity and greater sedentary behavior in individuals with VI than the overall population.

Research question

Here, we compared gait and balance measures between individuals with VI who participate in disability sports, and activity level matched sighted individuals.

Methods

We assessed static balance, anthropometry, self-selected walking speed, locomotion rehabilitation index, and lower limb muscular endurance; and applied physical activity level and fear of falling questionnaires.

Results

Individuals with VI who participate in disability sports, self-selected a similar walking speed (1.29 ± 0.26 m/s) as active sighted individuals (1.39 ± 0.21 m/s). Locomotor rehabilitation index and muscular endurance of lower limbs were also similar between groups. Individuals with VI presented lower static balance (42.0 ± 17.0s) than the sighted control group (45.0 ± 0s) when the controls were tested with their eyes open. However, no difference was found when the controls were tested with their eyes closed (30.3 ± 17.0s). Furthermore, individuals with VI showed a greater fear of falling.

Significance

In conclusion, individuals with VI who participate in disability sports, as goalball and football, walk with similar self-selected walking speeds as active sighted individuals, but have slightly worse static balance and fear of falling.

Introduction

Individuals with visual impairment (VI) self-select a lower walking speed than individuals with unimpaired vision [[1], [2], [3]]. Furthermore, it is well known that young, middle–aged and old adults with VI maintain low levels of physical activity [4] and greater sedentary behavior [5] than the overall population. As such, the lower self-selected walking speed (SSWS) in individuals with VI might partially depend on the reduced physical activity in this population. For instance, participation in disability sports has been shown to result in better static balance [[6], [7]] and decreased fear of falling [8] in individuals with VI.

Here, we set out to compare SSWS between VI athletes (individuals with VI who frequently practice disability sports) and active sighted individuals. In addition, we evaluated several functional outcomes: static unipedal balance, lower limb muscular endurance, and fear of falling. We hypothesized that individuals with VI who participate in sports regularly will show similar gait and functionality performances as sighted individuals, i.e. that physically active individuals with VI would have similar SSWS, static balance, lower limb muscular endurance and fear of falling as sighted individuals.

Section snippets

Methods

Twelve football and goalball players with blindness (VI; age: 31.5 ± 10.8, range 18–50 years, 4 female), and 12 physically active sighted individuals (SG; 26.0 ± 7.7, 23–48 years, 4 female) participated in the study. The individuals with VI had been participating in sport over a period from 3 months to 29 years, and had several differences in origins of visual disease and duration of visual loss (Table 1). We adopted the definition of visual classes according to International Blind Sports

Results

Statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between VI and SG for age, height, leg length, weight and body mass index (Table 3). Physical activity levels were similar between VI (11 active, 1 very active) and SG (9 active, 3 very active). No statistical differences between VI and SG for SSWS, LRI, or lower limbs muscular endurance were observed (Table 3). VI showed reduced balance compared to SG, when SG performed with their eyes open. However, this difference disappeared when SG

Discussion

It has been argued that VI individuals exhibit an impaired functional mobility, muscular endurance, and balance in comparison to control people [[1], [2], [3], [6], [7], [8]]. It has never been studied, however, whether VI individuals that actively participate in sport modalities retain these parameters deteriorated. Our hypothesis was confirmed showing that individuals with VI that participate in sports have similar gait and functional parameters as sighted controls. The sport participation

Conflict of interest statement

There are no commercial relationships which may lead to a conflict of interest with any of the authors.

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