How Special Olympics can help athletes with disabilities reduce depression risks
Global News
A recent study based on data collected over 20 years suggests Special Olympics participants are 49 per cent less likely to develop depression than people who are not involved.
Participation in Special Olympics helps young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to reduce the risk of being diagnosed with depression, a recent Canadian study has found.
The study, published in December in a medical journal titled the Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, found through data collected over 20 years that participants were 0.51 times as likely to develop depression as non-participants, which represents a 49 per cent reduction in risk among Special Olympics participants.
The combination of physical activities and the social connectedness of “being part of a team” helps young adults to lower the risk of being diagnosed with depression, said Meghann Lloyd, an associated professor at the Ontario Tech University Faculty of Health Sciences and the lead author of the study.
Lloyd said this is an opportunity to get more people — including children, young adults and older people — to participate in Special Olympics if this could help have fewer people diagnosed with mental health conditions.
Special Olympics is an international organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, according to its website.
“This is an organization that is well-established within our community, that now has significant evidence of a health-promoting effect, so part of participating in an activity such as Special Olympics could potentially reduce our health-care spending if people are less likely to use a health-care system,” said Lloyd.
The study however, stated that researchers still need to look further into how much of this risk reduction is related to a physiological response to physical activity and exercise, and how much is related to “the social connectedness of being part of a group participating in Special Olympics.”
Lloyd said this study emphasizes the mental health benefits of physical activity, which “we all know and believe.”