Free Life on Wheels by Gary Karp

more capable of change than we ever thought. Old ideas are starting to fade away.”
    This avenue of research can be applied easily in rehab, since it involves no pharmaceuticals or surgical intervention. The Food and Drug Administration does not have to approve it as a form of physical therapy, so treadmills and FES bikes are increasingly becoming standard equipment in therapy gyms across the US.
    Recreation Therapy
     
    While in rehab, you are removed from your daily life in the outside world. You face considerable psychological adjustments, do hard physical work in the therapy gyms, and possibly live with pain. A little fun is an important element of successful rehab. Recreation will also be an important aspect of your life after rehab, so the recreation therapist will help you begin to identify—and maybe try—those options. And, like other forms of therapy, recreation therapy helps you develop and optimize your strength and skills.
    A recreation therapist is a trained professional. Recreation therapists understand the physiology and psychology of your disability and what physical and cognitive capacities are necessary for a given sport or activity. By bringing that information together, recreation therapists help determine athletic options and are aware of adaptations that make a sport available to you, such as the mono-ski or sip-and-puff controls for target shooting. They will work with the occupational therapist and physical therapist to design supplemental activities that give you the chance to use the strength and skill you will develop in the therapy gym and once you’re back home.
    There is a remarkable and expanding set of sports and recreation options that are increasingly open to wheelchair users, discussed in great detail in Chapter 8, Getting Out There. Choices include wheelchair basketball, quad rugby, snow skiing, kayaking, waterskiing, archery, billiards, Ping-Pong, tennis, shooting, and many other sports accessible to chair users, often by means of adaptive devices. Many sports are available to people with limited arm strength, including swimming, archery, bowling, camping, sailing, and even throwing a Frisbee, thanks to the Quad-Bee designed by Foster Anderson, a man with quadriplegia in northern California.
    The recreation therapist will discuss what interests you and what you did before your disability and will then point you to organizations that sponsor events where you can observe activities that interest you. You could even set your sights on devoting yourself to an event enough to compete on a world-class level at the Paralympic Games.
    Rancho Los Amigos uses sports as a way of finding out what interests people have. The center offers hockey and wheelchair basketball games, as described by Dr. Michael Scott:
     
    We have a very active recreation program. We introduce people to various sports to make them aware of options. We have developed a highly competitive sports program. The recreation therapist also takes them on outings in the community.
    Many rehab centers take you on field trips, organized and overseen by the recreation therapist. Therapists know the value of contact with the outside world, to help you through those early moments of feeling conspicuous as a wheelchair user and to give you a taste of an accessible recreational activity. The outing might just be a stroll around the block or going to a movie, but recreation therapists do their best to get a little fun into the experience.
    HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital’s Uli Salas takes people to local wheelchair basketball games:
     
    People might just sit and watch, or join in, depending on their ability. It is a good way for us to get them out and thinking in terms of still being athletic.
    Outings show the recreation therapist your reactions to disability and help you learn how the world will react when you begin to appear in the world as a chair user. Dr. Scott explains:
     
    Based on how they do when they go out, we give them