Introduction: The aim of this study was to compare the scapular symmetry, functional disability and proprioception of shoulder joint between disabled athletes and non-athletes.
Methodology: The research methodology was post-event research (comparative). The population of this study was men with SCI disability aged 20 to 30 years. A total of 60 people were chosen in three groups of 20 people, shot put athletes, wheelchair basketball players and disabled non-athletes. The data collection instruments included consent forms and collect information was used through a questionnaire of Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), tape square meters and standard universal goniometer manufacturing LTD Co. of Japan. In this study, descriptive statistics including central and dispersion parameters, graphs and tables were used to describe the research data and inferential statistics including Kolmogorov-Smironov and Levene test were conducted to check data normality and homogeneity of variances. To analyze the hypothesis One Way ANOVA test in the significance level of α≤ 0.05 was used.
Results: The results showed that there is no significant difference among scapular symmetry of shoulder joint of wheelchair basketball players, shot put athletes and disabled non-athletes. In addition, although the significant difference in functional disability of shoulder joint between the two groups (shot put and wheelchair basketball) was found, but there is no significant difference between the mean dysfunction of the shoulder joint in wheelchair basketball athletes and shot put athletes. The results also indicated that there is a significant difference in the shoulder joint proprioception of athletes with disability "wheelchair basketball", "shot put" and "disabled non-athletes" in the level of α≤ 0.05; this means that disabled athletes in the shoulder joint proprioception have been lower.
Discussion: There is a significant difference in symmetry shoulder joint of disabled athletes and non-athletes with spinal cord disability, but functional disability shoulder joint of athletes with disability is less than disabled non-athletes. The proprioceptive (carefulness restored joint angle) of athletes with disability, wheelchair basketball and shot put, due to the nature of the sport, is higher than disabled non-athletes.