JP Barfield, president of Department of applied physiology, health and clinical sciencesis a recognized researcher in the field of disability and paralympic sports. Recently, he interviewed rugby athletes in a wheelchair for his research project on concussions in the Sport parabral.
“Chairs establishing such energetic contact, athletes can feel a cervical boost,” said Barfield. “Unlike other sports, it is not the player’s contact to player who causes injuries, it is the shock of the chair or the fall of the chair that is problematic.”
Barfield research focuses on the results of the health and quality of life for athletes with physical disabilities. He has published a lot on athletes with cerebral paralysis, spinal cord lesions and muscular dystrophy, and he studies how acute response to sport are projected to chronic functional changes.
Member of the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, Barfield is also treasurer and responsible for the classification of the International Federation of Powerchair Football Association, which is the International Director for Powerchair football (also known as Powerchair Soccer.
Powerchair Soccer is a sanctioned sport of the Paralympic movement and is being examined for inclusion at the Paralympic Summer Games.
Barfield travels the world in the name of the FIPFA to classify the athletes for the competition. The FIPFA classification system minimizes the impact of the impact on the result of the competition, therefore, the athletes who succeed in competition do so according to their sporting capacity. To achieve this, athletes are evaluated and put in sports classes according to the extent of the limitation of the activity resulting from their impairment.
There are 10 types of eligible disorders in paras, including a limb deficiency, altered muscle power and a leg difference.
As part of his research which is part of his professional service, Barfield works with the deputy professor of UNC Charlotte Yinghao Pan, a biostatistian in the department of mathematics and statistics, to set the criteria for the grouping of the classification of electric football, which is part of the requirements of the international Paralympic committee.
Wheelchair athletes participate in the study
At the beginning of January, Barfield organized a two -day wheelchair rugby tournament at the Belk Gym of UNC Charlotte, which houses the educational spaces, laboratories and offices of the applied, health and clinical science department. The building also offers three versatile basketball and volleyball courts, two racquetball courts, badminton, changing rooms and a swimming pool.
The annual Rugby Rugby Rugby Tournament of Queen City Collision is organized by the Atrium Health Sports and Adventures program, which sponsors The Carolina Crash, the Charlotte wheelchair rugby team. Five teams, including Charlotte and Raleigh’s Sidewinders, participated in the 2025 tournament. The other three teams were from outside the state.
Barfield organized the tournament in 2024 and plans to welcome it in 2026 and beyond. Holding the tournament on the campus provides a free installation and accessible to the games, and it gives Barfield direct access to the research participants.
During the tournament for this year, Barfield and members of his research team interviewed more than 40 athletes for his study on the treatment of concussion in the parabral sport, which is a continuation of previous research where he examined basic conviction in this population. During the Queen City wheelchair basketball tournament in Rock Hill, South Carolina, last November, Barfield and her team interviewed 65 athletes for the study.
Reference scores are needed to access concrete concussions, and there are limited basic scores for disabled athletes. Initially, Barfield established the results of basic concussion tests using a common instrument.
“Now we are examining how health care changes around concussions depending on the competition so that all players can access a good reference,” he said. “We examine what level – popular, regional, national – players believe they have adequate health care to assess and treat injury to the head.”
The objective of research is to share with national and international organizations where there are gaps in health services for disabled athletes who have been affected by concussion.
“Do we need to find ways to obtain more sports coaches at the local level or is it for national tournaments?” He educates organizations on how to update their health care policies and procedures, “said Barfield.
Learn more about the College of Health and Human Services website in https://health.charlotte.edu/2025/03/04/research-looks-at-health-outcomes-from-playing-disability-sports/.
Photo, center, JP Barfield and Samantha Webb student interviews a player from the Carolina Crash wheelchair rugby team.