Every year starting on the last Sunday in May, Canadians celebrate National AccessAbility Week (NAWW). The week is an opportunity to celebrate Canadians with disabilities and raise awareness of the critical need for accessibility and inclusion in all communities and workplaces.
Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos, an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) at the University of Toronto (U of T), has been at the forefront of research into adapted (disability) physical activity and behavioural psychology. She was recently awarded $120,000 in funding through the Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport (TISS) for an interdisciplinary research project examining athlete concussion surveillance in Special Olympics Sports.
“While concussion is a serious public health concern and has continued to gain increasing scientific attention, athletes with intellectual disabilities (ID) are vastly underrepresented within concussion research, education, and care,” says Arbour‐Nicitopoulos. “This means that athletes with ID such as Special Olympics (SO) athletes may not be adequately protected when participating in sport, particularly because of the increased potential to sustain a concussion and higher risk of prolonged recovery following a concussion due to pre-existing conditions with balance, memory and other cognitive deficits.”
This project brings together experts in disability sport, sport-related concussion and ID to identify and support the concussion needs of the Special Olympics Canada (SOC) community. The team includes Nick Reed, an associate professor in the department of occupational science & occupational therapy at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Pediatric Concussion, Emily Bremer, assistant professor in the School of Kinesiology at Acadia University and Canada Research Chair in Healthy Inclusive Communities, Michael Hutchison, associate professor at KPE with expertise in sport concussion and rehabilitation, Tom Davies and Victoria Formusa from Special Olympics Canada, and the Centre for Sport‐Related Concussion Research, Innovation and Knowledge.
Together, they are working on:
• developing and piloting a SO athlete concussion surveillance tool that can enable coaches and medical staff to capture concussion injury, demographic and sport characteristics; and
• surveilling Canadian SO competitive athlete concussion incidence and history.
“Current return-to-play (RTP) concussion protocols give little regard to the unique experiences of athletes with ID, whose characteristics may mimic some of the symptoms one would expect following a concussion” says Arbour-Nicitopoulos. “Through this research, we aim to develop a prototype athlete concussion surveillance tool that can assist with removal-from-play and return-to-play strategies for SO athletes.”
The project, spread over two years, consists of three phases:
Phase one involves gathering feedback and consensus from medical staff and coaches on the items to be included within a prototype SO concussion surveillance tool. The prototype SO concussion surveillance tool will build upon any of the existing injury tracking mechanisms used at national and provincial SO games and the collected concussion information will be adapted based on the group’s consensus.
Phase two, currently underway, will use prospective and retrospective approaches to pilot the implementation of the surveillance concussion tool at large multi‐day SO competitions. These Games will include over 2300 SO athletes across a range of SO sports. Onsite survey data collection will occur with caregivers and athletes to capture retrospective concussion history while focus groups with a subgroup of medical staff and coaches will be conducted to gain an understanding of their experiences with using the surveillance tool.
Phase three will support knowledge translation and dissemination activities to enhance the uptake of the study findings among the SO and sport science community.
“The lack of inclusion of athletes with ID has left the Special Olympics Canada (SOC) community with unmet concussion needs, inappropriate concussion education resources and unknown concussion incidence rates,” says Arbour-Nicitopoulos. “This research places athletes with ID at the forefront in concussion prevention, care and recovery to ensure quality sport experiences and long-term involvement in sport for all athletes.
“Importantly, the dataset we collect through this project can serve to explore additional research questions surrounding sport-related injuries in athletes with ID that are relevant to the international sport research community.”
Resources for Special Olympics Canada athletes, caregivers, coaches and volunteers are available on the Special Olympics Canada website.