Brooks Rehabilitation Adaptive Sports and Recreation - Changing lives
After a traumatic event, many people can feel lonely, helpless, or scared they will not be able to enjoy life having a disability. This type of thinking leads many people with disabilities to feel anxious and disconnected from the world, which may lead to depression and a decrease in a person's quality of life.
Something that has always interested me was the psychological aspect of therapy. How does the psychological aspect affect patient outcomes? I have learned there are many studies that show that the therapeutic alliance (the trust between the therapist and the patient) is the best predictor of treatment outcomes. To built this therapeutic alliance you need the build trust, respect, and show a genuine interest and empathy.
As a physical therapist, I believe it will be my job to get the best treatment outcomes that will assist in helping a patient's quality of life improve as much as possible. While working for Brooks Rehabilitation I learned about Brooks Rehabilitation Adaptive Sports and Recreation. They are a non-profit, non-revenue program (under Brooks Rehabilitation) that, "helps people living with a mobility impairment to enjoy a higher quality of life through the benefits of a socially and physically active lifestyle."
This is an amazing program that can make huge changes to a patient's quality of life at No Cost to the patient. Their mission statement says it all, "Our Mission: Provide individuals with physical disabilities the inspiration, education, training, access and opportunity to participate in a world-class adaptive sport and recreation activities." How better to build a therapeutic alliance than to help someone with a disability feel free from limitations and see themselves as a part of a community. This is what the program does, it allows people to feel connected again and see what things they can still accomplish even with a disability. I can't express how helpful this program really is to the disables and their families.
The Brooks Adaptive Sports program is completely free (for most events) for the disabled and their families and they use volunteers and donations from businesses around the area as well as the Brooks Foundation funding that is an amazing aspect of Brooks Rehabilitation. They are providing a service to the community and doing it all revenue-free, which is very rare to see anywhere. They have been able to expand their availability of activities to reach a broad range of interests in the community including surfing, archery, power soccer, shooting, basketball, and wheelchair rugby. They have even assisted with multiple individuals to attend the Special/Para Olympics and be able to compete/earn medals.
Today I got to interview Alice Krauss, M.Ed, OTR/L at Brooks Rehabilitation Adaptive Sports and Recreation. She is an amazing individual with a heart of gold. She started this program with a vision to make a better outcome for people with disabilities and their families. Her goal for this entire program is to better the quality of life for these individuals and has been able to accomplish tremendous things with the help of Brooks Rehabilitation's commitment to the community.
I know they are always in need of sponsors and volunteers for their events so I would highly recommend everyone check out their website and find an event that interests you to volunteer (and participate for most of them). I volunteered for the adaptive surfing and it was so much fun and incredible to see how much these people enjoyed themselves being free and surfing out on the beach when most times of the day they are in a bed or wheelchair and confined. They also have a Challenge Mile coming up March 10 where they need volunteers to help push wheelchairs, assist walking, and just encouraging people to accomplish a physical goal and overcome the barriers that many see as impenetrable after a traumatic injury.
Check them out on Facebook or their website with all there events in the greater Jacksonville area. If you can volunteer or just tell people that could benefit from the education of living with a disability, degenerative disease, or just older age and if they could participate it could truly change their lives for the better. I think we owe it to the community to do our part and it might not even take much of an effort.
Alice Krauss and PT Studens from University of St Augustine for Health Sciences
References:
Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation. https://brooksadaptivesportsandrecreation.com/. Accessed February 27, 2018.
Robinson L, Smith M, Segal J. Emotional and Psychological Trauma. HelpGuide.org. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/coping-with-emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm. Accessed February 27, 2018.
Fuentes J. Enhanced therapeutic alliance modulates pain intensity and muscle pain sensitivity in patients with chronic low back pain: an experimental controlled study. Pub Med. doi:10.2522/ptj.20130118.