All chapters
Special Populations & Operations · Chapter 32 Not started
Adaptive Athletes
Assessing and assisting athletes who ski and ride with adaptive equipment and different baselines.
Key points
- Ask the athlete first: they are the expert on their body, baseline, and equipment — 'What's normal for you?' is your most useful question.
- Establish the patient's baseline before judging findings: absent sensation or atypical movement may be their everyday normal.
- Know common adaptive equipment (sit-skis/mono-skis, outriggers, tethers) well enough to assess and extricate without causing harm.
- Patients with spinal cord injuries may not feel injuries below their level — examine visually and gently everywhere.
- Autonomic dysreflexia (in higher spinal injuries): pounding headache, flushing, hypertension triggered by stimulus below the injury — find and remove the trigger, sit them up, transport.
- Communicate directly with the athlete, not over them to a companion.
Knowledge check1 / 3