Fit Feet Report and Results
The 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games were held in Shanghai, China October 1st-11th. There were over 7,800 athletes that competed in the Games. Of the total number of athletes registered for the games, 4,879 (66.9%) were screened in Healthy Athletes. They averaged 3.8 screenings out of 6 per athlete. Some had been screened previously at other games, did not feel a need to be screened or did not have time to be screened. We were hurt by a typhoon/tropical storm that caused us to loose a half a day of screenings then we were slow the following day as the athletes had to play make up games to keep on the competition schedule. The pre-games goal was to screen a minimum of 70% of the athletes with a high of 80%. As you can see, we feel just short of the goal, which we felt was obtainable had we not had the weather problems. Despite that, we set a record for most athletes screened at a World Games.
Fit Feet conducted screenings on 2,817 athletes or 39%. This put us 4th of the 6 disciplines, ahead of FUNFitness and Health Promotion but trailing Healthy Hearing, Special Smiles and Opening Eyes. We closed the gap on Healthy Hearing as compared to large games in the past. There were many challenges during the games with interpretation by Chinese doctors on how to perform the exam. They quite often measured the feet length and width while the athlete was sitting despite our recommendations that it be performed standing. Also there was some confusion by the host country of what abnormal gait looked like. While the forms stated that 35.9% of the athletes had gait abnormalities, we feel that it was closer to between 50-60% that were abnormal. We were unable to pull all the forms but based on numbers we did pull, there were a lot of forms marked normal when the athlete clearly had pathological gait patterns. It was interesting to find that 51.3% of the athletes had skin or nail abnormalities. The majority of these were fungal nails, tinea pedis and calluses. We had several cases of clubfoot deformities with the athletes performing at a high level despite the orthopaedic abnormalities which in some cases were severe.
They announced at the games that there will be a new data collection method in which each athlete will have a unique identifier number and that we can cross check collected information with other disciplines. What is really exciting about the system is that it will be a portable health care record that is downloaded to a stick or card that the athlete can take with them from doctor to doctor. The athlete will be the only one who has a password and each doctor they see can add information to the electronic records.
As usual of World Games, a few celebrities stopped by to visit the venue. Colin Farrell, the Irish actor toured Fit Feet and asked many deep questions about what we do and where we are going in the future. Eunice Shriver came by with her son Bobby and we had a nice conversation about Fit Feet. We were also visited later by CEO Tim Shriver and his wife Linda who asked us to perform a Mat Scan exam on her so she could experience what the athletes go through at the screenings. The director of Special Olympics for Ecuador also visited us and is very interested in adding Fit Feet to his country. He was also interested in a Mat Scan system with possible video gait analysis and possibly an AmFit Orthotics system. In the near future, Bruce Williams, DPM who is a consultant to both companies and myself will travel to Ecuador to help start Fit Feet.
On the horizon are several more training programs. I will be conducting a Train The Trainer program for the state of Florida in November. In early December, Healthy Athletes programs will meet in Miami, Florida for an intense 5 year planning and goal setting meeting. I have submitted a list of 10 invitees, representing all the regions of Special Olympics with the exception of Middle East/North Africa as we currently do not have any Fit Feet programs in that region. Our future goals include adding video gait analysis and possibly some type of OTC insoles or even long term a custom made milling system such as AmFit currently sells. Michael Kinchington from Sydney, Australia and Dave Jenkins from Midwest University in Phoenix, Arizona or embarking on some research papers using the Fit Feet data. We hope to publish in an international journal in the near future. In February we will conduct a Train-The-Trainer program in Boise, Idaho which will be the site of the 2009 World Winter Games. The 2011 World Summer games will be held in Athens, Greece.
Fit Feet continues to grow world wide. At the beginning of the games, we held a Train-The-Trainer program. We had 2 more trainees from China but also added physicians from Taiwain, Hong Kong and South Korea. A second physician from India was also trained at these games as well as another podiatrist from New Zealand. We had podiatrists from South Africa and Namibia giving us two countries in Africa. From Europe we added Fit Feet programs from Poland, Turkey and Romania.
China provided 22 physicians and medical students through out the games. Starting October 3rd we were joined by 6 international volunteers who were a great asset to the program. Alan McCague from Derry, Northern Ireland actually came early and helped with the training. These were Alan's 3rd World Games after helping in Dublin and Nagano. His wife Shauna who is a medical secretary also came and helped with various non-medical duties. Carrine Haemills from Belgium volunteered for her second World Games and brought her husband Patrick who also helped in the venue. Michael Kinchington from Australia also worked his second games and as noted above will be helping on the research of our data and to help with the further development of our biomechanical screenings. Rob Conenello from New York/New Jersey and Dave Jenkins from Arizona both attended their first World Games and were a vital part of the success of these games. Lastly, but not least, we had our second resident podiatrist in the past two World Games, participate as part of the team. Wenjay (Jay) Sung a current resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was able to experience the Special Olympics movement on a world stage. We greatly appreciate his director, Dr. Patrick Burns for allowing Jay to travel to China.
While there were some problems due to language and cultural differences, overall the 2007 World Summer Games were a success for the athletes and Fit Feet. As always, we continue to need volunteers, with many states in the US still without programs. Please contact me if you are interested at
[email protected]
Patrick J. Nunan, DPM
Global Clinical Advisor, Fit Feet
Healthy Athletes Program, Special Olympics
