The psychological perspective of injured athletes

1. Psychological Perspective
Of Injured Athletes
Presented by
Manohar Kumar Pahan
And
Shweta Sen

2. Sports Injuries & Rehabilitation
• Injury : The term injury means trauma to the body that result in at least
temporary physical disability and inhibition of motor function.
• Sports Injury : Sports injuries are injuries that happen when playing
sports or exercising. There are two Kinds of sports injuries.
• Acute injuries occur suddenly when playing or exercising. For
example
Sprained ankles.
Strained backs.
Broken bones.
Chronic injuries happen after you play a sports or exercise for a long
time.

3. • Underpinned by wiese-bjornstal and colleages (1998)
integrated model and Brewer & Colleagues’ (2002)
Biopsycho-social model, this chapter is divided into three main
sections.
Frist, an overview of the model of injury response is
provieded. Second, Three phases of recovery are considerded:
(a) injury onset.
(b) rehabilitation.
(C) return to competitive sports.

4. On Set of Injury
• Understand the athlete and not just the injury.
• Faster to working relationship with injured athletes
that will enable them to disclose their thoughts and
feelings.
• Provide emotional support and sympathy by listening
to the athletes concerns.
• Get athlete to consider the potential long-term
consequences as well as the short-terms gains of
competing while injured.

5. • Encourage athletes to learn about their injuries.
• Raise athletes awareness of who in their social
support network can help them with every day tasks.
• Encourage athletes to mobilise their social support
network to help them deal with the challenges that
the injury presents –and reinforce that deal with the
challenges that the injury presents-and reinforce that
availing of support is strength,not weakness.

6. Rehabilitation
• Facilitate the provision of emotional support and get
athletes to mobilise their support network to gain
tangible support to help them with issues associated
with mobility and doing normal daily activities.
• Discuss with the athletes the potential for feeling
isolated, an how best to deal with this.
• Encourage effective communication.
• Use of psychological skills

7. • Encourage a task and mastery –oriented focus using
process and performance goals.
• Create awareness with athletes and the medical
support team of the need for goals to be flexible to
account for the slowness of rehabilitation progress
and setback.
• Encourage the use of daily diary to monitor progress
and provids a basic for feedback.

8. • Variety in rehabilitation programme.
• Encourage the use of imagery and self-talk, an
reinforce goal attainment.
• Encourage the role of sports sciences.

9. RETURN TO COMPETITIVE SPORT
• Support by team mates and +ve feedback to lower or
eradicate re-injury anxiety.
• Provide athletes with information support to prevent
a premature return to sport.
• Good communication with all supporting members
of team so that there is no rushing to their return to
sport.
• Challenge unrealistic performance.

10. • Increase level of self confidence.
• Encourage athletes through reflective practice to
become self-aware of any potential long –term
benefits they gained during their injury experience.

12. Refrences
• Albinson,C. B. & Petric, T.A. (2003).Cognitive appraisals, stress, and coping pre-
injury and postinjury factors influencing psychological adjustment to sport injury
journal of sports rehabilitation, 12,306-322.
• Brewer,B.W.(2007) Psychology of sports injury rehabilitation.In G.Tenenbaum and
R.C.Eklund (eds),handbook of sports psychology (3rd edn,pp.404-
4240.hoboken,Nj: Wiley.