Para Swimming

Athletes with a Coordination Impairment have one or more of the following three movement disorders that adversely affects the ability to voluntarily produce a full range of skilled movement fluidly, rapidly, and accurately:

• Hypertonia/Spasticity: an increase in muscle tension that may be velocity-dependent and/or a reduced ability of a muscle to stretch.
• Motor Ataxia: limited precision in direction and velocity of voluntary movement.
• Dyskinesia (Athetosis, Dystonia, Chorea): involuntary movements that interfere with voluntary movements.

Examples of Underlying Health Conditions that can lead to coordination impairments include Cerebral Palsy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Stroke, and Multiple Sclerosis.

Athletes with Impaired Muscle Power have a reduced (or no) ability to contract their muscles to generate force that is consistent with an Underlying Health Condition affecting the structure and function of the central or peripheral nervous system or the muscles.

Examples of Underlying Health Conditions leading to impaired muscle power include: spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome, and spina bifida.

Athletes with Impaired Passive Range of Movement have a reduced ability for a joint to be passively moved that is consistent with an Underlying Health Condition affecting a structure of bones, joints, connective tissue, or soft tissues.

Examples of Underlying Health Conditions leading to impaired passive range of motion include: arthrogryposis and contracture resulting from chronic joint immobilization or trauma affecting a joint.

Athletes with Limb Deficiency or Limb Length Difference have a total or partial absence of a limb or anatomically irregular limb dimensions that are consistent with an Underlying Health Condition resulting from trauma (traumatic amputation), illness (example: amputation due to bone cancer), or congenital causes affecting the bones and/or joints (example: dysmelia).

This impairment group can be further divided into the following sub-categories:

• Limb deficiency
• Leg length difference and/or
• Arm length difference

Athletes with Short Stature have reduced total body length (including head, trunk, and legs) as a results of congenitally or developmentally reduced length of the bones of the upper and lower limbs (and may also have reduced trunk length).

Athletes will not be considered to have Short Stature if their reduced total body length is the result of Limb Deficiency or Limb Length Difference only.

Examples of an underlying health condition that can lead to Short Stature include achondroplasia, growth hormone dysfunction, and osteogenesis imperfecta.

Athletes with Vision Impairment have an Underlying Health Condition affecting the structure or function of the eye, optic nerve, optic chiasm, post chiasma visual pathways, or visual cortex of the brain resulting in reduced or no visual function even when using the best possible refractive or optical correction.

Examples of Underlying Health Conditions leading to vision impairments include retinitis pigmentosa and diabetic retinopathy.

Athletes with an Intellectual Impairment have an Underlying Health Condition causing restriction in general mental functions required to understand and constructively integrate the various mental functions including all cognitive functions and their development over the life span. This impairment must be present before the age of 18.

For more information on Intellectual Impairments, please visit http://www.athleteswithoutlimits.org/eligibility