User:HarleyForet/sandbox/Final Paper on Parasports

Introduction
Sports are a huge cultural favorite in the United States as they bring everyone together. Millions of people take time out of their busy schedules to watch, or attend, a sports game at least once a week. As fans are entertained by the sport itself, they do not recognize who is playing these games. These world-famous sports players are healthy, in the sense of being physically fit, but not everyone is. So, what happens to individuals who may have physical or mental disabilities and want to play sports themselves? One word: parasports. Parasports, or paralympic sports, are sports only played by individuals with psychiatric or/and physical disability. The intensity level of the parasport and deciding on which athletes play with who depends on the following characteristics: the psychiatric and physical disability along with if the disability is short term or long term. This article's main focus will be to demonstrate the effects paralympic sports have on the para-athlete from all different aspects of their lives.

Terminology
Paloma Barbosa de Lima and Ana Cristina de Jesus Alves are two authors who performed a 2020 case study on if participating in parasports benefit disabled adolescence into finding careers in the future. From their understanding, "Paralympic sports, according to the Brazilian Paralympic Committee, came from the Greek word 'para' which means 'side, parallel,' and the word 'Olympic.' It emerged after World War II when it was used in England as a rehabilitator of war veterans with spinal cord injury. Shaped upon the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games were created to meet the needs of people with disabilities and thus became a high - performance event in the world,". It should also be noted that parasports and paralympic sports are both interchangeably with the following terms: adaptive/adapted sports, disability/disabled sports.

Sports
Nowadays, our everyday sports have transformed into being disability friendly. Also, new and upcoming sports are being created to be specifically for disabled athletes (goalball). As sports become more accessible to people with disabilities, society as a whole is becoming more accepting to para-athletes. "Playing an adapted sport has a positive impact on physical and psychological factors, especially behavior - related abilities, including self - esteem, self - efficacy and sense of belonging,"

Forms of Training in Parasports
Inspiratory muscle training (IMT) is one training technique used and has a huge success rate for para-athletes. This particular training boost respiratory function and the athlete's physical being, not only for the sport, but for the real world also. Inspiratory muscle training is generally useful for aerobic fitness, but working on one's breathing techniques is incredibly important no matter what the sport is. Physical training for any paralympic sport produces lasting, positive mental health but also other physical functions. Physical functions meaning the ability to move the muscles in your body easier and increase the time of movement. One may believe that parasports only have a positive impact on a para-athlete, but some authors prove otherwise. Marques and Alves, who will be discussed later one, prove that there can be ups and downs to training techniques in paralympic sports.

The Ups and Downs of Paralympic Sports
One major question came up in 2022 by Jill Parnell and her team, which caused them to conduct a scientific questionnaire. Their question was if athletes with spinal cord injuries (SCI) and their coaches understand the overall consequences from not having the proper nutritional education in parasports. "Coaches have been cited as a source for nutrition information and a preferred source for dietary supplement advice among para-athletes. However, SN knowledge among coaches of para-athletes has been reported to be poor,".