UBC students, Faculty and Clinical Faculty, once more attended a BC Special Olympics Healthy Athlete program, where we ran the Healthy Hearing service. This included hearing screening, cerumen management, and hearing aid checks. Independent Industrial Audiometric companies assisted with donations of their vans and personnel.
Research has shown that individuals with intellectual disabilities are both at risk and underdiagnosed for various other conditions, including hearing impairment. We saw over 150 individuals over 2 days, making recommendations or referrals for over 1/3 of them. Athletes came from all over BC, and were always given information on services in their own part of the province.
Interprofessional education (IPE) has become a requirement of our clinical training program. At the Healthy Athlete Village, our students had the opportunity for IPE chats with dentists and hygienists, optometrists and opticians, podiatrists, physiotherapists and nutritionists.
Other Healthy Athlete programs will be run throughout the province in the coming year. Volunteers are essential to these programs – contact Special Olympics or the School if you’d like more information.
This summer will see the Canadian National Games for BC Special Olympics in Vancouver. We’re ready!
