Health related, daily life activity and sports domain characteristics of swimmers with Down syndrome.
Down syndrome is the most common form of intellectual disability. This condition is associated with low levels of physical fitness and poor body composition. Nevertheless, studies emphasize the importance of physical activity and sports in the general health condition of the population.
Little is known about this kind of competitive swimmers. Are they healthier than untrained peers? Do they lead a more active daily life? Concerning swimming, some pilot studies have studied this population, although much is needed to get a deeper understanding of this kind of swimmers. The aim of this Project is to compare the physical fitness, body composition and the daily physical activity of competitive swimmers with untrained peers.
For this, the Eurofit Special test was applied, as well as the using of a new device (WalkinSense®) to analyze daily physical activity. Also, swimmers with Down syndrome (S21), swimmers with intellectual disability (S14) and swimmers without disability performed a 3x25m maximum velocity to evaluate biomechanical parameters (speed, IdC, IVV, SR, SL) and compare the inter-variability and intra-variability. It is also our intention to understand if swimmers with Down syndrome should stay in Class S14 for International Paralympic events (IPC) or if their characteristics justify the creation of a new Class: S21.
Researchers
Publications
1. Querido, A.; Araújo, D.; Soares, S.; Vilas-Boas, J.P.; Corredeiroa, R.; Daly, D.; Fernandes, R. (2012). 100-m freestyle race analysis of the 5th World Down syndrome swimming championship. Supplement to Med. & Sci. in Sports & Exerc., 44 (5): S315.
2. Marques-Aleixo, I.; Querido, A.; Figueiredo, P.; Vilas-Boas, J.P.; Daly, D.; Corredeira, R. Fernandes, R. J. (2013). Intracyclic velocity variation and arm coordination assessment in swimmers with Down syndrome. Adap Phys Activ Q, 30 (1): 70-84
3. Querido, A.; Corredeira, R.; Vilas-Boas, J.P.; Daly, D.; Fernandes, R.J. (2014). Can swimmers with Down syndrome follow a visual pacer in an incremental protocol? In: B. Mason (Ed.), Proceedings of the XIIth International Symposium for Biomechanics and Medicine in Swimming, pp. 325-328. Australian Institute of Sport. Australia.
4. Querido, A.; Vilas-Boas, J.P.; Corredeira, R.; Daly, D.; Fernandes, R.J. (2015). The added value of water for swimmers with Down syndrome. D. Daly (ed.), Book of Abstracts of the Aqua-Leuven 2015. 15-18 April, Belgium.
5. Junior, V.; Querido, A.; Araújo, D.; Vilas-Boas, J.P.; Corredeira, R.; Daly, D.; Fernandes, R.J. (2012). 200-m backstroke race analysis at the 5th Down syndrome swimming World championships. Book of Abstracts of the 17th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science. 4-7 July, Bruges, Belgium: 143.
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Funding
SFRH/BD/78513/2011