The Benefit of Sport for People with Disabilities

Abstract

Starting points: People with disabilities face daily obstacles that do not allow them to integrate adequately into society. Health disadvantage itself is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, which carries with it several specificities. Social inclusion is a phenomenon that is still present in the academic world than in society itself. A specific part of inclusion is precisely the participation of people with disabilities in sporting activities. Although sport can be understood as the most beautiful means of inclusion of people with disabilities, it is here that we can observe shortcomings in participation in sport. Very little attention is paid to the management of sport of persons with disabilities and their support from society is at a minimum. We chose this issue precisely because of the increase in the interest of people with disabilities in sports activities. Methods: The study analyzes sport as a means of inclusion of people with disabilities in society. We carried out the research in qualitative design and as a method of data collection we chose a semi-structured interview, which we conducted with 9 informants between October 2021 and March 2022. We analyzed the results of our research was to find out what sport brings to the lives of people with disabilities and to find out in what areas sport has enriched the lives of people with disabilities. Results & conclusions: Based on our findings, we can conclude that people with disabilities reflect the changes that occurred in their lives after they started active sports. Through sport, they managed to improve not only their physical condition, but also brought positive changes to them by sport in the fields of mental and social. Our research also confirmed the positive impact of sport on the autonomy of people with health disadvantages.