INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: This study had as an objective to evaluate the visual acuity behavior in athletes with low vision, during a continuous effort protocol. Researches point out that visual acuity presents performance varieties when submitted to physical efforts in subjects without visual impairment. METHOD: The studied population was composed by six peoples, who practiced athletics and were part of the Brazilian team in track events. The progressive physical effort test was applied on the first day in a treadmill. On the second day the continuous effort test was applied, which was divided in three levels, each one had a 15 and 30 minutes break between them. To determine the intensities, the results obtained in the progressive physical effort test (60% of VE peak, limiar VE and 90% VE peak) were used. The visual acuity was measured before, during and after each level of intensity in the continuous effort protocol. The t Student test was used for statistics analysis (p < 0.05). RESULTS: The visual acuity presented a decrease in the three levels of effort in its performance. The variety between the initial static visual acuity measure results and the measurement of the same variable in the end of the running phase was 44.5% in the first level, 52.5% in the second and 60% in the third level. The results presented higher degradation of the visual component during the dynamic measurements. The recuperation phases, which succeeded the most intense levels of effort, had the results of the visual acuity, after the deficit found during the exercise. CONCLUSION: It can be inferred that in this specific population there is a decrease in the visual acuity during the effort. This fact implies on the necessity of the visual sportive classification being directed to evaluate the visual functionality of each athlete with low vision during the physical effort, since these varieties can occur during it.
Athletics; Visual impairment and visual acuity
