The effects of an adapted basketball training program on the physical fitness of adolescents with mental retardation: A pilot study

Abstract

Introduction: Previous studies have established a direct connection between levels of physical fitness and the time needed to perform daily tasks in adults with intellectual disabilities. These findings indicate that physical activity can improve the quality of life of individuals with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the effects of an eight-week specially adapted basketball training program on the physical fitness of adolescents with mental retardation. Methods: Twelve adolescents (6 males and 6 females, mean age 15.1±1.5 yrs) with mental retardation participated in the study. A specially adapted basketball training program was conducted four times per week over eight consecutive weeks. Each training session lasted approximately 30 minutes. Anthropometric measurements included height, weight, and percentper cent body fat. Exercise testing included monitoring of heart rate (HR at rest and HR at the end of the 6-MWT) and the six-minute walk test (6-MWT). Results: The obtained results showed that the specially adapted training program improved the physical fitness of adolescents with mental retardation (6-MWT distance 473.7 m ±74.5 pre vs. 672.6 m ± 76.1 post, p<0.05; HR at the end of the 6-MWT 122.1 beats/min ± 16.5 pre vs. 116.8 beats/min ± 9.4 post, p<0.05); however, this type of training did not decrease body weight or percentper cent body fat in the adolescent participants. Conclusion: Considering the small number of participants who were involved in the study, the obtained results provide only limited information on the sources and magnitude of the variation in response measures, but these results support the design of a full-scale experiment on this topic.

Effects of a School-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Obesity, Health-Related Physical Fitness, and Blood Pressure in Children with Intellectual Disability: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Our findings suggest that the 12-week PA intervention can improve the 6MWT distance (partial η 2 = 0.149), which is consistent with our previous findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis for children with ID [15]. In that systematic review and meta-analysis, seven out of eight PA interventions employing the 6MWT reported effective results on cardiopulmonary fitness [18,29,[33][34][35][36][37] (partial η 2 = 0.010-0.600). Among those reporting effective (including this study), the interventions with vigorous intensity (compared with moderate intensity), those following the progression principle (compared with constant intensity), and those combined aerobic and resistance training (compared with aerobic training only) tended to generate larger effect sizes (partial η 2 > 0.14) [18,29,33,35].…”

The effects of special sports games program on physical fitness in adolescents with intellectual disability

“…Slight physical fitness results of both groups of respondents at the initial and final testing show that the ID has an impact on performance reduction in relation to persons without disabilities (18). The cause of this phenomenon should also be sought in previously documented studies that show that adolescents with IDs are less active than their peers without disabilities (13) ( Table 2).…”

Sports Games and Motor Skills in Children, Adolescents and Youth with Intellectual Disabilities

“…Ten studies included both male and female participants [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ].…”

“…Ten studies included both male and female participants [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. Five studies included male participants [57][58][59][60][61].…”