Lenahan suffered main bone breaks all through his physique, torn muscle mass, and a traumatic mind harm. Confined to a wheelchair for the primary two and half years of his therapy, Lenahan admits to feeling overwhelmed and shedding coronary heart. It wasn’t till he visited Walter Reed’s Military Advanced Training Center (MATC) that he noticed the sunshine on the finish of the tunnel. As he witnessed one other affected person, a triple amputee, vigorously exercising, Lenahan realized he nonetheless had a lot to be thankful for, and he was impressed to start his journey again to full restoration.
The MATC is designed to help amputees and people with traumatic accidents discover ways to handle and overcome their challenges. It was initially established to supply look after service members coming back from fight abroad. One of the areas the MATC makes use of to help within the restoration course of lots of their sufferers face is with participation in adaptive sports. Adaptive sports use modified guidelines and tools to open aggressive and leisure athletic alternatives for individuals with bodily, cognitive, or visible impairment.
“They had told me I might not climb, or even walk again,” stated Lenahan. “I said, ’Watch me.’ I [attacked] my physical therapy and got back on course. After a couple years, I began climbing again and made it onto the U.S. Paraclimbing team. Climbing is the one thing that helped me…through my recovery, my TBI, through multiple layers of PTSD. Climbing is a thing that requires so much focus, and determination and physicality that whatever’s going on in your head at that time, it can pull you out of that.”
Harvey Naranjo, a licensed occupational remedy assistant, is Walter Reed’s Adaptive Sports and Reconditioning program supervisor and he works within the MATC as a member of the Department of Rehabilitation. Originally deployed to the ability in 2002 whereas nonetheless on lively obligation, he labored with what was then known as the amputee care group. Later, after his separation from the Army, Naranjo remained with Walter Reed and has been a group member for greater than 20 years.
“Back then I was working with our infantry and special operations population who were at the front lines of the conflicts,” stated Naranjo. “Traditional balls and cones in the clinic weren’t going to do it. I needed to find ways to keep them engaged and invested in their rehab. I basically took exercises we would do in the clinic and gave them purpose through sport.”
Naranjo’s work with recovering service members initially started with a give attention to group reintegration; getting them used to being out and concerned on the earth once more. The curiosity in adaptive sports as remedy, and past, got here when he occurred to attend a gathering and encountered individuals concerned within the adaptive sports world. Naranjo started connecting with different organizations who had been concerned in adaptive sports after which he realized the Department of Veterans Affairs ran a winter sports clinic and started coordinating with them.
“I found there were a bunch of resources out in the community that wanted to support service members and provide these types of opportunities for them,” stated Naranjo.
Once Walter Reed stood up the MATC in 2005, the adaptive sports program was fast to observe, in nice half as a consequence of Naranjo’s urging. Many of his friends noticed the outcomes that had been being achieved by pushing the sufferers to be extra lively.
“We had support from our leadership at that time who were invested in our combat wounded,” stated Naranjo. “They let me take the ball and run with it, and I was honored. It was a huge responsibility and I wanted to make sure that I did the best job possible.”
In reality, Walter Reed was the primary facility within the U.S. Military Health System to introduce adaptive sports as a part of its official therapy routine and several other different navy medical services have since adopted its instance.
Naranjo’s expertise as an occupational remedy assistant supplied a superb foundation to include adaptive sports into his work on the MATC. Occupational remedy assists individuals in performing on a regular basis actions that matter most to them. These every day duties are known as “occupations” and embody every part from self-care, work and faculty to socializing and leisure. Whether dressing, cooking or taking part in with kids, occupational remedy focuses on enhancing one’s potential to carry out such duties. By adapting environments or utilizing assistive instruments, it helps preserve independence and enhance total high quality of life.
“Occupational therapy is about maximizing function,” stated Naranjo. “I focus on the athlete role because when you look at our service members returning from battle, they’re athletes that basically need to have a sense of physical fitness, mental fitness and movement.”
Adaptive sports take many kinds – bicycling, snowboarding, working, boxing, mountain climbing, and the checklist goes on. Since the inception of Walter Reed’s adaptive sports program, Naranjo has organized an annual exposition to showcase out there assets. On common, tons of of tourists attend the occasion annually, the place upwards of 20-plus organizations show reducing-edge tools, novel methods, and numerous alternatives for participation in varied adaptive sports occasions.
“You can see the shine in a patient’s eyes when they find a sport that interests them,” stated Naranjo. “But you can also see it in their family’s eyes, standing next to them, as they begin to realize that ‘Wow! It’s not over.’”
Naranjo works within the MATC beside a devoted group that features different occupational, leisure and bodily therapists, as nicely as bodily medicine and rehabilitation physicians and prosthetists. Together they work diligently to rehabilitate and encourage their sufferers to efficiently reintegrate into the group.
Former sufferers from Walter Reed have gone on to take part in many various adaptive sports on knowledgeable or semi-skilled degree. Several prior sufferers at the moment play for the U.S. National Paralympic hockey group, a minimum of two have achieved medals within the Paralympics for swimming, triathlons and snowboarding and one was featured on Dancing with the Stars.
Lenahan’s experiences with adaptive sports have had such a profound affect on him that he has made it his ardour to assist others uncover the advantages. He teaches climbing at native health facilities, too, and supplies inspirational talks at occasions just like the Walter Reed annual expo.
“I realized what climbing has done for me, and I realized I can use that as a tool to help other recovering warriors heal,” stated Lenahan. “If I could say one thing about adaptive sports, it’s a good place to put your energy. It can help pull you out of the pits of despair.”
For extra info on Walter Reed’s MATC and its adaptive sports program go to their web site at [Walter Reed – Military Advanced Training Center](https://walterreed.tricare.mil/Health-Services/Specialty-Care/Amputee-Care).