FUNfitness, Fit Feet and Health Promotion in SOHAP
KUCHING: Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Programme (SOHAP) is a programme designed to help the Special Olympic athletes improve their health and fitness leading to enhanced well-being, quality of life and performance in sports.
FUNfitness, Health Promotion and Fit Feet are three of the seven components of the 5th SOHAP conducted this year at the Special Olympic State Games held at University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) Stadium from Aug 17 to 19. The other four are MedFest, Opening Eyes, Special Smiles and Healthy Hearing. FUNfitness Athletes with intellectual disabilities have limitations in components of fitness – flexibilty, strength, aerobic fitness and balance.
These were the findings of Clinical Director Catherine Wong Pick Yieng who is a physiotherapist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kota Kinabalu and her FUNfitness team.
Wong was in Kuching at the invitation of Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Programme (SOHAP) leader Prof Dr Toh Teck Hock who is Special Olympics Asia Pacific Regional Clinical Advisor and Special Olympics Malaysia Clinical Director.
“This is the physical therapy component of SOHAP and our team of volunteers screened a total of 148 athletes for their flexibility, strength, aerobic fitness and balance.
“Most of them will have limitation on either one or more of the four components of fitness – flexibility, strength, aerobic fitness and balance,” she said.
For example like on flexibility, the athletes are screened on their hamstring muscles, calf muscles, hip flexos and shoulder muscles.
On strength, they are screened for the strength in the leg.
“For them to maintain good balance and good walking ability, they need the strength in the leg so that they will not fall so much,” Wong explained.
Athletes are also given score cards where they are taught and encouraged to do the necessary exercises in a fun way.
“Our discipline is called FUNfitness because most of the time, there is fun involved. We asked the athletes and volunteers whether they have fun in this programme and the reply is affirmative: “Yes, we have fun”.
“We also look at their (athletes) exercise habits and encourage them to do more exercise,” she added.
Wong was trained as a clinical director in 2006 in South Pattaya, Thailand where the Asia Pacific Games was held at that time.
She joined the SOHAP programmes in Samarahan in 2007 and in 2010 in Ipoh Special Olympic Malaysia National Games and in Sibu the same year.
Wong had also participated in SOHAP in 2014 in Kuching and 2016 in Bintulu. Health Promotion One hundred and forty-three athletes were screened by the Health Promotion team of 20 volunteers headed by Clinical Director Koa Ai Ling who is a nutritionist and dietitian currently based at the Miri General Hospital.
“When the athletes come, they will first be checked for their Body Mass Index (BMI) where they will be measured on their height and weight. For children, we will plot the growth chart.
“If they are found to be overweight or obese, they will be given referrals whereby their parents will bring them to hospitals and clinics for treatment.
“After that their blood pressure will be measured and this time around we are lucky that for the screening on bone density, we have two volunteers from a private company who brought in the equipment to measure bone density,” said Koa.
“Apart from that, we do nutrition counselling and athletes will be asked about their physical activities and whether they smoke. We will teach them the hand hygiene and how to wash their hands properly.”
Koa was brought up in Sibu and she was first associated with SOHAP in 2008.
“I was initially confused about Special Olympics and thought it had something to do with Paralympics. Prof Dr Toh brought me in to be trained as clinical director in Brunei when I was working in Miri.”
Since then, she had participated in SOHAP conducted in Miri, Bintulu, Kuching and Ipoh.
For Koa, SOHAP provides a very good exposure where the athletes are not treated as patients but as athletes.
“It is a very valuable working experience where you cannot get at your work station and you get to know more people. In every SOHAP, you have a different king of experience,” she noted. Fit Feet The Fit Feet section was aimed at screening the athletes’ feet as they use them most of the time to run, train and do other sports activities.
Assoc Prof Dr Wong Chya Wei, an orthopaedic surgeon at KPJ Sibu Specialist Centre who heads the team, said they aimed to screen the athletes for skin and nail problems.
His team comprised 10 Segi students, medical personnel from the Health Ministry and private individuals.
“A lot of the athletes with intellectual disabilities have problems in terms of deformity of the foot. We found that this group of athletes really do need a lot of foot support items to make sure they have balanced feet. This will keep their bones healthy, keep their muscles and joints in good condition so that eventually they can carry on for the rest of their lives.
“A lot of time, they have problems in getting around so shoes is also an important item. They should be wearing proper shoes instead of wearing sandals and sports shoes which are not actually catered to what they are doing.
“We look at their shoes to make sure they are appropriate for the sports and educate as well as advise them on the proper wearing of the footwear not only for sporting activities but also for day to day activities,” said Dr Wong.
According to him, 10 per cent of the 175 athletes that his team screened over the two-day period were found to have foot problems such as skin and nail problems.
On SOHAP, Wong said it was utilising the opportunity of State Games to screen the athletes and they and their parents were willing to come and participate.
Wong was involved in SOHAP since 2006 and he is the regional trainer for Fit Feet in Asia Pacific region.
He finds this volunteer work very rewarding although it took time away from his work and it needed sacrifices.
“Once you come for this kind of activity, it is very rewarding when you see what are the things you can do for the athletes.
“It is one way of giving back to the society in caring for these people.”
He said Special Olympics Sarawak Chapter was one of the best Special Olympics chapters in the country and Sarawak was very fortunate that under the guidance of Dr Toh, it was built up as a good and complete team.
“We are all very dedicated and there is good team spirit and I believe that with this kind of spirit to propagate down, more and more people will come and join us,” he concluded.