Physiotherapy

2016 Paralympics: Media depictions of disabled athletes are improving, says U of T researcher

lavende4 — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:36:43 +0000

2016 Paralympics: Media depictions of disabled athletes are improving, says U of T researcher

lavende4 Tue, 08/30/2016 - 09:36

Cutline

Brazilian and Canadian rugby players during a test event for the Rio 2016 Paralympics (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Alyson Musial

Author legacy

Alyson Musial

Topic

Global Lens

Paralympic Games

Faculty of Medicine

Physiotherapy

With the 2016 Paralympic Games starting next week in Rio de Janeiro, writer Alyson Musial sat down to chat with Nancy Quinn (below), a sport physiotherapist and University of Toronto Masters graduate who researches the intersection of sport, disability and media. Nancy is a veteran of six Paralympic Games and has received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the Paralympic movement in Canada. Alyson also spoke to Nancy’s advisor, Department of Physical Therapy Professor Karen Yoshida, about how Paralympic athletes are represented in the media.

Nancy, tell us why you are so passionate about the Paralympic Games.

Quinn: Where to start? I graduated in 1987 with a BScPT fully entrenched in the medical model of disability; patients with a disability had a problem that required fixing. I had spent 4 years learning the biology and pathology of impairment, and had been taught strategies and techniques to repair, modify and at the very least, limit the progress of impairment. Upon reflection, I received little if any exposure to people outside of the acute care setting who lived with physical difference. In four years of university I met no one who worked outside the home, had a family, played sport, dated, and lived with a disability.

And so began my illustrious career of fixing people who I really knew nothing about.

A series of fortunate circumstances placed me on the medical team of Team Canada at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Here I met a community of people with diverse physical impairments, who were highly athletic, and were passionate about elite sport and competition. These same people travelled, danced, dined out, had children, married and divorced (not necessarily in that order), worked, and lived with a disability. These people also faced a variety of societal challenges.

Post Atlanta, I was hooked. I had discovered a sporting community where physical difference did not preclude athletic excellence. I returned home to central Ontario brimming with stories and enthusiasm to discover that there had been no media coverage of these Games whatsoever.

Zero.

Nothing in The Globe and Mail, our national newspaper, and no television coverage. My friends and family congratulated my volunteerism with these Games, using language of charity and benevolence. How good it was of me to help those people out! I found this very frustrating. Six Paralympic Games later and I am a proud and passionate advocate for the Canadian Paralympic movement and a disability scholar in the making.

How are disabled athletes represented in the Canadian media?

Yoshida: Sport journalism has traditionally featured athletes with disability far less often than able-bodied athletes. When athletes with a disability do receive coverage, their disability is framed as a tragedy, and that sport offers the athlete the opportunity to recover from, or transcend, this tragedy to achieve a more “normal”, able-bodied life. This framework celebrates their athletic achievement, but only as a triumph over the personal tragedy of impairment. Also, female Paralympic athletes are represented less often than their male counterparts. Male athletes who use wheelchairs, who are white and identify as heterosexual receive more frequent, diverse coverage than other athletes with disability.

Our research also shows that Paralympic athletes are faced with a complex dilemma: when the sport media choose to represent a Paralympian as an elite athlete by minimizing their physical difference, the athlete becomes more relatable to a non-disabled viewing audience. Yet conversely, embracing physical difference establishes credibility for athletes within their disabled community. The tension between minimizing difference for non-disabled audiences, and highlighting difference for audiences with a disability, is a very interesting and challenging reality for the Paralympic community and makers of media.

How do conversations around disability, sport and the media affect rehabilitation?

Yoshida: It’s no mystery that media plays an influential role in our lives. Rehabilitation professionals need to work diligently to think critically about disability, which can be challenging given most clinicians are educated and socialized professionally in the biomedical model of disability, wherein disability equates to incapacity. Discussions of athleticism, and therefore ability, challenge assumptions of the biomedical model and encourage new ways of thinking about rehabilitation, which is great! As media continues to construct more alternative, positive cultural representations of athletes and ability, the language and practice around physical difference will evolve within the field of rehabilitation.

Are media representations of para-sport evolving?

Quinn: The good news is, things are improving. Working with Karen while doing my Masters, I looked at CBC’s coverage of the 2004 Paralympic Games. CBC did a great job of representing our Canadian Paralympic athletes as athlete first. This was a truly positive step. Since the early 2000s, there is evidence to support that media representations of female and male Paralympic athletes have been growing, in quantity and quality. Slowly, the media is embracing more multi-dimensional representations of Paralympic.

It’s 2016 and my inbox is full of great media regarding para-sport in Canada and the pending Rio Paralympic Games, informed by person first/athlete first language. I find videos on YouTube of people with physical difference dancing, giving advice on dating or how to prepare for a job interview, and playing sport.

But it’s 2016 and I still see people with mobility difference unable to move through the snow on a city sidewalk that has not been cleared. I hear able bodied people in my clinic waiting room speaking overly loud to others who have obvious physical difference. I see big budget films at the theater with story lines that reinforce the tragedy of disability.

It’s 2016 and media representation of para-sport, Paralympians and disability has evolved and continues to evolve. We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go.

IMAGINE health clinic: U of T students serve city's most marginalized citizens

sgupta — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 08:27:42 +0000

IMAGINE health clinic: U of T students serve city's most marginalized citizens sgupta Tue, 12/02/2014 - 03:27

Cutline

A physiotherapy student helps Sandra* who suffers from back pain (photos by Jelena Damjanovic)

Jelena Damjanovic

Author legacy

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Subheadline

Providing integrated health care for free to people without insurance, ID or funds

Imagine a clinic providing free health care to Toronto’s most vulnerable residents: people with no fixed address, health insurance or ID. Too bold, utopian, or disruptive?

Not for a group of University of Toronto students.

In 2007, U of T students from a variety of health profession programs came together to form the Interprofessional Medical and Allied Groups for Improving Neighbourhood Environment (IMAGINE). And by 2010, with support from faculty and community partners, the IMAGINE clinic was open and offering medical, nursing, pharmacy and social work services.

In 2012, physiotherapy was integrated and the clinic became a recognized Centre for Interprofessional Education credit program.

“It seemed like a really unique opportunity for a student to get involved both first line interacting with patients and interacting in a team with all the other professions that you might see in the real world,” says Claire Hooper, a third-year pharmacy student volunteering at IMAGINE.

“It’s also a very unique, underserved patient population, so it’s a great opportunity to be able to help, especially as a student.”

Students volunteer at the clinic (pictured at right) for three consecutive Saturdays, followed by a reflection day. They work in teams of five students drawn from each health discipline, supervised by five preceptors – licensed healthcare practitioners, who are also volunteering at the clinic.

Working in pairs, the students start the visit, take the patient’s history, perform a physical exam, interpret information and present the case to the rest of the team.

Christopher Wang, now in his second year of medicine, likens the experience to doing a puzzle. “It’s hard to know what to expect when we walk through the door. We try to gather all the pieces and then we go back and debrief with the team and that’s where we start putting the puzzle together. With the expertise of everybody sitting around that table we try to figure out what this patient is here for and what we can do to help.”

In the process, students also learn to write clinical notes, collaborate with other disciplines and develop a treatment plan. And they gain confidence along the way.

“Because they are in pre-clinical years, most med students have not yet been told to “go get your patient and bring them into the room,” says Norma C. Carter, a family doctor/general practitioner, who has been volunteering at IMAGINE as a physician preceptor over the last three years. “By the third clinic, the same student is confidently giving polished, organized presentations and developing plans with their fellow students.”

More than 200 clients are assessed and treated at IMAGINE every year. Many patients come in for physiotherapy, because it’s generally not covered by health plans, but students also see people suffering from common ailments to infections to mental health issues and they treat them all.

Wang’s fondest memory is of a patient who came in with an infected thumb. After examining it and debriefing with the team, the preceptor came in and together they had a good chat with the patient, who turned out to be an IV drug user trying hard to overcome his addiction.

“After explaining to the patient that the thumb is related to his drug use he seemed to have more of an incentive to keep on working on that aspect of his life,” says Wang. “That was very memorable because people will often question how much we can do in a one-hour session like this, and I think there’s actually a lot we can do in terms of getting people back on the right track even.”

Such encounters teach students that patients from marginalized populations have the same health issues as other patients but with additional challenges that make management much more complex at times, says Carter. “They’re getting intensive exposure to the social determinants of health, while also learning not to be afraid of a challenging population.”

Wang agrees. “As training medical students it’s very easy to be only shown the best cases, high blood pressure, etc. But that’s not at all what the health scene of the city is like. I think it’s important for students to see that.”

Hooper concurs: “It makes you a better health practitioner.”

(Above: team members discuss case with preceptors.)

The benefits from IMAGINE’S open, enthusiastic and collaborative care extend beyond the students and the city population they treat, organizers say. Preceptors say they – along with the patients they see in their regular practice outside IMAGINE – also benefit from the inter-professional learning opportunities IMAGINE provides.

Like Carter, Vivian Law is among the 100 preceptors from medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, and social work volunteering at the clinic this year. She started volunteering at IMAGINE as a pharmacy student and has been volunteering as a pharmacy preceptor for the last three years.

Working alongside preceptors and students from other professions, you learn together, Law says. And when students go out to do practice, they’ll be better equipped to interact with other healthcare professionals, she says, and they’ll know what information and support they can get for the patient.

“That’s important because the underprivileged come in with multiple common diseases and issues, so it’s good that the students get to look at the patient in a more holistic view.”

Sandra*, returning to the clinic for a follow-up visit about her back pain, is happy with the service she is getting.

“I like when they show me some exercises or give me a handout so I can practice at home,” she says. “They really want to keep me on track.”

The clinic is open every Saturday except on long weekends and holidays from 10am to 2pm. (Learn more about volunteering, supporting or accessing the clinic.)

*Name changed for privacy reasons.

Jelena Damjanovic writes about communities and urban outreach for U of T News.

picpath

sites/default/files/2014-12-02-IMAGINE-clinic.jpg