Acute effects of an injury preventive warmup programme on unanticipated jump-landing-task performance in adult football players: A crossover trial.

HIGHLIGHTS: Adapting movements rapidly to unanticipated external stimuli (e.g. unexpected landings) is crutial to prevent injuries in footballIt is unclear wether popular neuromuscular injury preventive warmup programmes (e.g. Prevent injury and Enhance Performance (PEP)) adaquatly prepare athletes for these situationsOur study shows that the PEP warm up programme has acute effects on anticipated landing stability, but no influence on unanticipated landings or decision making qualityClassic neuromuscular warm up programmes may not be the optimal choice to prepare athletes properly for the upcoming motor-cognitive demands in a football match.

Acute effects of a neuromuscular warm-up on potential re-injury risk factors associated with unanticipated jump landings after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: A crossover trial.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate acute effects of a single bout of football specific neuromuscular injury preventive warm-up on potential anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) re-injury risk factors during anticipated and unanticipated jump-landings. DESIGN: Crossover. METHODS: Fourteen participants (mean ± SD age, 23.4 ± 4.1 years) 6-24 months after ACL reconstruction performed the Prevent Injury and Enhance Performance (PEP) and bicycle ergometer warm-up in a randomised sequence. Washout phase was one week. Countermovement jumps with anticipated and unanticipated single-leg-landings were assessed. Decision-making quality was measured using landing error count. RESULTS: No carry-over effects occurred (p > 0.05). The unanticipated task produced significantly higher peak ground reaction forces (Δ+4%, F(11) = 3.46, p < 0.001, eta2 = 0.21) after PEP warm-up compared to ergometer warm-up. A lower number of decision (Δ+12%, F (5) = 17.1, p < 0.001, eta2 = 0.57) and cumulated (Δ+15%, F (3) = 17.2, p < 0.001, eta2 = 0.57) errors were recorded during the unanticipated condition following PEP compared to ergometer warm-up. CONCLUSIONS: Evaluating unanticipated jump-landing ability prior to return to sports clearance may provide information on potential re-injury risk factors. PEP warm-up may be superior to bicycle ergometer warm-up at improving unanticipated decision-making quality among athletes cleared to return to sports.

Wheelchair accessibility to public buildings in the Kumasi metropolis, Ghana.

BACKGROUND: Accessibility implies making public places accessible to every individual, irrespective of his or her disability or special need, ensuring the integration of the wheelchair user into the society and thereby granting them the capability of participating in activities of daily living and ensuring equality in daily life. OBJECTIVE: This study was carried out to assess the accessibility of the physical infrastructures (public buildings) in the Kumasi metropolis to wheelchairs after the passage of the Ghanaian Disability Law (Act 716, 2006). METHODS: Eighty-four public buildings housing education facilities, health facilities, ministries, departments and agencies, sports and recreation, religious groups and banks were assessed. The routes, entrances, height of steps, grade of ramps, sinks, entrance to washrooms, toilets, urinals, automated teller machines and tellers' counters were measured and computed. RESULTS: Out of a total of 84 buildings assessed, only 34 (40.5%) of the buildings, 52.3% of the entrances and 87.4% of the routes of the buildings were accessible to wheelchair users. A total of 25% (13 out of 52) of the public buildings with more than one floor were fitted with elevators to connect the different levels of floors. CONCLUSION: The results of this study show that public buildings in the Kumasi metropolis are not wheelchair accessible. An important observation made during this study was that there is an intention to improve accessibility when buildings are being constructed or renovated, but there are no laid down guidelines as how to make the buildings accessible for wheelchair users.