A Comparative Assessment of Static Balance Among Malaysian Blind Football Athletes

• Published in: Lecture Notes in Bioengineering
• Main Author: Ishak S.; Hasan H.; Rum A.Z.M.
• Format: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH 2024
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85200452297&doi=10.1007%2f978-981-97-3741-3_3&partnerID=40&md5=166d0b4803945976fa53e50cd04f10f7

Athletes in high-performance sports must maintain appropriate postural control despite numerous destabilization factors. A blind athlete may negatively impact static and dynamic balance, which is related to movement dysfunction and inability to balance. The study objective is to assess static balance among national blind football athletes; nevertheless, they prefer leg choosing on types of surfaces associated with several falls. Method: There are ten male blind national football athletes aged 18–29 with about 6–10 years of training experience. The material used is a balance beam, weight scale, stopwatch, and stature meter. Participants performed a single-leg standing test (flamingo position) with a preferred and non-preferred legs on the ground and the beam. Result: Surface type significantly affects the number of falls (p = 0.022), with significantly more falls occurring on the beam compared to the ground. However, the study found no statistically significant main effect of leg choice (p = 1.000) or interaction between surface type and leg preference (p = 1.000). In addition, there was no significant difference found in the number of falls between the preferred and non-preferred legs on the beam (p = 0.911) or on the ground (p = 0.800). Conclusions: The study concluded that there was a significant impact of surface type on the frequency of falls among national blind football athletes, notably more falls occurring on the beam compared to the ground. However, the research found no significant effect based on leg preference or an interaction between leg preference and surface type to falls. Moreover, no significant differences were observed in the number of falls between the preferred and non-preferred legs, neither on the beam nor the ground. These findings emphasize the critical influence of surface type while indicating that leg preference might not be a significant factor in the frequency of falls among these athletes. These findings also affect training and interventions to improve balance and performance in blind football. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2024.