Left Ventricular Performance Following Swim Training in Egyptian Wheelchair Swimmers.

Introduction: Athletes with special needs represent a growing population of sports participants. The Special Olympics is an international organization dedicated to empowering individuals who have physically and intellectual disabilities to become physically fit through sports training and competition. Subjects with parapleglegia and amputation don't use their legs in their daily lives which may affect myocardial efficiency. According to the law of use, so, not using the legs is considered to be amongst the factors affect the cardiac deficiency in general.Purpose: The aim of these study is determined and compared myocardial responses to intensive training (IST), 24 weeks, 6 times per week, 120 min per unit in male wheelchair swimmers (amputee vs. paraplegic). Results: All analyses were performed by spss, mean ±S. D, t. test estimated differences between the two groups and % improvement. There were significant differences for myocardial parameters and max vo2 (L/min) after (IST) for both groups. The significant observation in this study indicates that below-knee amputated swimmers showed a greater improvement in myocardial parameters and max vo2 than paraplegic swimmers.

Author(s): Dr. Magdy Abouzeid

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