Analysis of Injuries and Wellness in Blind Athletes during an International Football Competition

Abstract

Five-a-side football for blind people is the only adapted football modality present at the Paralympic games. Fa5 is a collaborative-opposition sport in which its participants play with no vision, which causes numerous impacts. At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, it was the sport with the highest incidence of sports injuries. The main objective of this work is to analyse the association between pain perception; spatio-temporal, mechanical, and metabolic workload with injuries; and wellness in players during an international Fa5 competition. The following variables, monitored during an International Fa5 Tournament, were analysed: general well-being, perception of pain and injuries, and the spatio-temporal and metabolic workload. The results show that the incidence of injuries increases as the tournament progresses, where injured players reported greater muscle pain and stress before the matches started. Besides, the players’ internal and external load did not explain the incidence of injury. Still, the values obtained in the wellness questionnaire, the perception of pain, and stress suggested they contributed to the incidence of injury.