While research indicates that sports and physical activity are useful avenues in rehabilitation for redeveloping identity for people with limb loss, the available research primarily focuses on Paralympians or elite athletes with disabilities. By contrast, researchers conducted a study to explore the experience of sport participation and identity in nonprofessionals with limb amputations.
The researchers conducted semistructured interviews with nine people who had undergone amputations and participated in sports and physical activity. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The research team developed four themes from the data: enabling a feeling of normality and equality, becoming a better person, belonging and connection, and experiencing and responding to the gaze of others.
The findings highlight the role of sport in facilitating personal growth through a desire to help and inspire others, the study said. It concluded that rehabilitation professionals involved in care following amputation could offer person-centered therapies to those who may be reluctant to participate in sport in a way that makes use of a person’s values and facilitates personal growth.
The open-access study, “Identity and sport participation following limb loss: A qualitative study,” was published in Prosthesis
