Hundreds of people with intellectual disabilities to receive free health screenings

“We have found that our athletes and individuals with intellectual disabilities suffer health disparities that are not as common in the generic population, and that is not because of their intellectual disability, it’s because they face issues accessing health care, for structural, social, or communication factors. So the Healthy Athletes program was designed to kind of combat that,” Macklem said.

“We bring health care professionals to the athletes at their sporting competitions or in the community. The trained health care professionals then deliver screenings to identify health disparities or issues, and then they are referred back into the health care system,” she continued.

Fern Russell, a Special Olympics Coach and mother to a Special Olympics athlete, says she’s seen first hand how valuable these free health screenings can be.

“As parents, we try to cover all those bases and make sure that our children are getting the attention that they need. But sometimes our eyes are so used to seeing something, it takes another set of eyes to recognize it. In our case, it was a visit to the podiatrist and it opened our eyes to: ‘wow, his toes shouldn’t look like that.’ Something as simple as that has made a big difference in his life,” Russell said.

“I’ve seen it with other athletes with glasses, hearing, all things that are just easily overlooked,” she continued.

Because Healthy Athletes has screened more than 1.7 million people, Special Olympics now maintains the largest dataset on the health of people with intellectual disabilities, an asset that has been incredibly valuable in pushing medical research forward.

“Right now in Prince George, there’s actually a group of researchers who is hoping to use the Healthy Athletes data that we’ve gathered from our screenings over the years and specifically look at the effects of Special Olympics programing and physical activity on the health of individuals with intellectual disabilities from northern and rural communities,” Macklem said.

The scientific value of this data has also been valuable in exposing areas of need.

“Studies have found that individuals with intellectual disabilities in B.C. alone die up to 20 years earlier than members of the generic population. They also face higher levels of preventable hospitalization and higher levels of diabetes, obesity, more preventable dental issues, things like that,” Macklem said.

Macklem added these screenings are open to anyone with an intellectual disability, not just Special Olympics athletes. If you would like to take part she says you can drop in on July 12. She also added Special Olympics is looking for more volunteers, health professionals or otherwise, to help with Healthy Athletes and other programs. If you are interested in volunteering you can visit the Special Olympics website HERE.

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by Tommy Osborne

Hundreds of people with intellectual disabilities to receive free health screenings

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