Sports for people with disabilities: A way for rehabilitation and social inclusion

Persons with disabilities are everyday more numerous, reaching a rate of 15% of the world population [1]. Ageing and medicine progress has contributed to increase this number, but the challenge to guarantee them all a high quality life is still incumbent both in advanced countries and in developing ones.

Sports and physical activity are important instruments for improving health, especially for persons suffering from chronic diseases and disability in their daily living [2]. The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [3] clearly stresses the importance of participating in sporting activities both at a recreational and a professional level. Along this same line, on 20 September 2023 the Constitution of the Italian Republic was amended in article 33 as follows: “The Republic recognizes the educational, social and promotional value of psychophysical well-being of sporting activity in all its forms” [4].

Despite these historic steps forward in political and cultural terms, the way to guarantee access to sports for people with disabilities is still very long, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has shown that many of the limitations make this road tortuous. Access to sports facilities and availability of competent personnel are still limited for people with physical, sensory and cognitive impairments, and the economic resources dedicated to this purposes are not sufficient in normal conditions and even more so in emergency ones [5].

Nevertheless, the sport-related benefits as an integration of rehabilitation for these patients are supported by solid evidence. Wheelchair users increase their motor skills [6] and quality of life when they regularly carry out a sporting activity [7]. Moreover, adaptive sports improve social support, physical fitness, fun, and feeling of independence [8]. Also, the fact that the recent European ParaChampionships, held in Rotterdam in August 2023, reached over one million live stream views on TikTok demonstrates that sports could represent a social redemption and full inclusion occasion for persons with disability.

The Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation (JBMR) has traditionally been at the forefront of promoting research on the topic of integration of people with disability, particularly when it is related to musculoskeletal disorders [9]. In our journal, Ocampo-Plazas and colleagues shared the proposal to include fitness for health in the rehabilitation project of amputee patients with altered physical capabilities due to long immobilization, hospitalization periods, and reduction of basic daily activities [10]. At the same time, eminent authors have been hosted here for their research on Paralympic sports and wheelchair athletes. Particularly, Tsunoda and colleagues deepened the important topic of shoulder pain in wheelchair basketball players [11], since it represents an ever-present problem in the field of injuries related to this sport [12]. Similarly, Yildirim and colleagues launched the innovative proposal of a rating scale specifically dedicated to shoulder pain assessment in these athletes [13], and also tried to investigate the relationship between shoulder pain and trunk control in this sport [14], becoming points of reference for research on the centrality of trunk stabilization in preventing injuries [15] and enhancing athletic performance [16].

Therefore, the dissemination of sports for people with disabilities requires further efforts by the scientific community to promote psycho-physical wellbeing for patients, knowledge for health professionals and safe sports practice for elite and amateur athletes; these are the reasons why I would invite you to consider it in your future research.

Also the current issue of JBMR deals with these concerns, and it is with great pleasure that the Editor’s Choice is awarded to Lippi and colleagues, who highlighted that multicomponent interventions including rehabilitation might be considered a suitable option to improve health management in spinal cord injury patients. Their paper has been made freely available for you to read, download and share.