Abstract
The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of a 10 week shoulder home based exercise program (SHEP) on shoulder pain (SP) and range of motion (ROM) in a group of elite wheelchair basketball (WB) players. A convenience sample of elite WB players (n = 36, 15 males and 21 females), mean age of 26 years (SD 7.6, range 15–45)) were assigned to either an exercise or a control group, according to the use of the wheelchair during daily activities. The shoulder pain index for wheelchair basketball players (SPI-WB), functional tests and ROM were measured at baseline and after a 10 week intervention. In the analysis of the SPI-WB scores, for the exercise and control groups separately, there were no significant reductions of SPI-WB scores after intervention. Related to the analysis between groups after 10 weeks of intervention, there were no significant differences in changes between the exercise and control groups (Z = 0.840, p > 0.05, r = 0.743). In this regard, there was a significant change after the intervention for shoulder extension ROM (Z = 2.81, p ≤ 0.05, r = 0.249). Shoulder Pain did not increase along the 10 weeks of the SHEP development in WB players who reported SP before the intervention program. However, in those players who started the intervention without SP, as no increase in SP was observed and players were free of injury. An exercise program could be a tool to maintain shoulder health and prevent injuries in elite WB players.
Highlights
Shoulder disorders are a common problem in wheelchair users [1,2]; a huge proportion of them experience shoulder pain (SP) [2,3,4,5,6,7]
The remaining two participants were lost before the follow-up because they did not participate in the last evaluation session
In the control group (CG), 14 participants were included, four participants were lost before the follow-up from the clinical trial because they did not come to the final evaluation
Summary
Shoulder disorders are a common problem in wheelchair users [1,2]; a huge proportion of them experience shoulder pain (SP) [2,3,4,5,6,7]. SP is one of the most common symptoms of physical dysfunction caused by increased shoulder load and the repetitive stress of wheelchair handling [7,8,9]. The risk for SP further increases when wheelchair users participate in wheelchair basketball (WB), which is the most popular adapted sport and is practiced worldwide [12]. Playing WB involves movements such as pushing, breaking or turning the wheelchair [14,15]. Overhead movements involved while shooting, rebounding or executing long passes may promote SP [3,16,17]
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