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Final Program


Final Program

1414 - Exercise Motivations for Patients with Congenital, Acquired, Neuro-degenerative, and Musculoskeletal Disabilities and Utilization of an Adaptive Sports and Fitness Program

Friday, February 28, 2025
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM MST

    Presenting Author(s)

  • ER

    Emma Raffman, BS

    Medical Student
    Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
    Chicago, Illinois, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • Prakash Jayabalan, MD, PhD

    Physician Scientist Director, Nancy W. Knowles Strength and Endurance Lab and Associate Professor
    Shirley Ryan AbilityLab/Northwestern University
    Chicago, Illinois, United States

Objectives: There are significant barriers to physical activity participation for individuals with disabilities. Adaptive sports have proven efficacy in improving the physical and mental health for those who engage in them. However, understanding the barriers and enablers to adaptive fitness participation remains an issue. There are also minimal studies that have assessed the barriers to participation in adaptive sports by disability type. This study aims to discern these differences to elicit a possible benefit of catering adaptive programs to specific disability demographics.

Design:

Study-specific surveys examining demographics, disability severity through the WHODAS 2.0, exercise motivations, barriers to, and knowledge of adaptive sports were administered to forty-two (n=42) participants attending an urban adaptive fitness center with either a musculoskeletal, neurodegenerative, acquired, or congenital disability.

Results:

The participant mean age was 61 (+/-13) years. Individuals with a neurodegenerative disability demonstrated a greater desire to slow the decline of their physical health (62%) and maintain their mental health (46%) through exercise while participants with musculoskeletal, acquired, or congenital disabilities reported a greater desire to improve their physical health (86%, 50%, and 100% respectively) and improve their mental health (71%, 55%, and 100%). At least 35% of individuals with a neurodegenerative, congenital, or acquired disability reported a fear of falling/injury as an exercise barrier, but no individuals with a musculoskeletal disability reported this concern. All participants described physical activity as being important to them, but across all disability types, motivations to improve physical performance, body image or find social interaction through fitness were irrelevant. Most (50% or more) individuals across all disability types were reportedly informed about adaptive fitness programs 5 or more years from their diagnosis date.

Conclusions:

This study indicates there are similarities and differences in exercise motivations and barriers for individuals with different types of physical disabilities.