Skip to main content

Sports, Disability, and the Reframing of the Post-injury Soldier

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Reframing Disability and Quality of Life

Part of the book series: Social Indicators Research Series ((SINS,volume 52))

  • 1574 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss the role that sports plays in framing the ideal physical rehabilitation patient in the United States Armed Forces Amputee Patient Care Program (APCP) at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Program leaders and clinicians emphasize the important role that sports can play in shaping good physical functioning outcomes for patients. A physically active lifestyle has been shown to improve both quality and quantity of life. But beyond this program, leaders and clinicians promote sports as a medium for healing from the consequences of traumatic injury. However, not all patients share in the commitment to achieving the kind of outcome envisioned in the APCP, and for them, it is a struggle to have their more idiosyncratic models of a good outcome accepted as one by program leaders and clinicians.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Baker, F. (2007). Walter Reed Gait Laboratory puts amputee troops back in step. American Forces Press Services. http://www.defenselink.mil/newsarticle.aspx?id=46468&446468=20070620. Accessed 31 May 2011.

  • Biddiss, E., & Chau, T. (2007a). Upper limb prosthesis use and abandonment: A survey of the last 25 years. Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 31(3), 236–257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biddiss, E., & Chau, T. (2007b). Upper-limb prosthetics: Critical factors in device abandonment. American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 86(12), 977–987.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DelVecchio-Good, M. (2007). The medical imaginary and the biotechnical embrace: Subjective experiences of clinical scientists and patients. In J. Biehl, B. Good, & A. Kleinman (Eds.), Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (pp. 362–380). Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Department of Defense (US). (2011). Current US casualties. http://www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf. Accessed 31 May 2011.

  • Dillingham, T. R., Pezzin, L. E., & MacKenzie, E. (2002). Limb amputation and limb deficiency: Epidemiology and recent trends in the United States. Southern Medical Journal, 95(8), 875–883.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gajewski, D., & Granville, R. (2006). The United States armed forces amputee patient care program. Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, 14, 183–187.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gawande, A. (2004). Casualties of war – military care for the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. New England Journal of Medicine, 351(24), 2471–2475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Janofsky, M. (2004, June 21). Redefining the front lines in reversing war’s toll. New York Times, A1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kleinman, A. (1981). Patients and healers in the context of culture: An exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine and psychiatry. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurzman, S. (2003). Performing able-bodiedness: Amputees and prosthetics in America. Dissertation submitted to Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manderson, L. (2011). Surface tensions: Surgery, bodily boundaries, and the social self. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mattingly, C. (1994). The concept of therapeutic emplotment. Social Science & Medicine, 38, 811–822.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mattingly, C. (1998). Healing dramas and clinical plots: The narrative structure of experience. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Messinger, S. (2009). Incorporating the prosthetic: Traumatic limb-loss, rehabilitation and refigured military bodies. Disability and Rehabilitation, 31(25), 2130–2134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Messinger, S. (2010). Getting past the accident: Explosive devices, limb loss, and refashioning a life in a military medical center. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 24(3), 281–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitka, M. (2008). Advocates seek better insurance coverage for amputees needing limb prostheses. Journal of the American Medical Association, 299(18), 2138–2140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, C. (2004). An interpretive phenomenological analysis of the embodiment of artificial limbs. Disability and Rehabilitation, 26(16), 963–973.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Driscoll, P. (2004, May 5). Losing a limb doesn’t mean losing your job. USA Today.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasquina, P. (2004). DOD paradigm shift in care of service members with major limb loss. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development, 47(4), xi–xiv.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Price, S. (2005, December). Run to daylight. New York: Sports Illustrated.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sobchak, V. (2004). Carnal thoughts: Embodiment and moving image culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stansbury, L., Lalliss, S., Branstetter, J., Bagg, M., & Holcomb, J. (2008). Amputations in U.S. military personnel in the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Journal of Orthopedic Trauma, 22(1), 43–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trudeau, G. (2005). The long road home. Riverside: Andrews McMeel Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warren, N., & Manderson, L. (2008). Constructing hope: Dis/continuity and the narrative construction of recovery in the rehabilitation unit. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37(2), 180–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weisskopf, M. (2007). Blood brothers: Among the soldiers of Ward 57. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Seth D. Messinger .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Messinger, S.D. (2013). Sports, Disability, and the Reframing of the Post-injury Soldier. In: Warren, N., Manderson, L. (eds) Reframing Disability and Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 52. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3018-2_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics