Independent Analysis; Climbing towards recovery

Article: Burke, S. M., & Utley, A. (2013). Climbing towards recovery: investigating physically injured combat veterans’ psychosocial response to scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro. Disability and rehabilitation, 35(9), 732-739.

Independent Analysis

Burke and Utley (2013) studied the impact of outdoor physical activity on the traumatized war veterans. The authors studied four Afghanistan war soldiers who were injured and were traumatized. The source explored the experiences of injured soldiers in an activity of 80 kilometer climbing on a mountain. The study found that the injured soldiers experienced self-determination, social support and active coping in order to successfully complete the challenge of climbing despite physical disabilities.  This source will help me provide evidence about positive impact of outdoor activity other than sports on recovery process after trauma. Secondly this source also proves the significance of physical activities in recovery from trauma among war veterans. Thus this source is important because it provides success of use of physical activities with a different sample of traumatized individuals (soldiers). I will use this source in two ways. first it will be used to explain that outdoor activities other than sports can also help in the recovery process after trauma. Secondly, I include it as proof that physical activities can be helpful in recovery of war veterans.

This source can be used to introduce challenging outdoor activities like climbing the mountains and other challenging and adventurous activities by MnM. This source will help MnM to design activities for war veterans also. Similarly, the new format of activities also provide MnM an opportunity to include a new variety of activities into MnM project to experiment with war veterans as well as other traumatized individuals.

One key concept used in this source is climbing towards recovery. This key concept means that the challenge of climbing the high mountain for physically injured and limited individuals is like climbing toward recovery. The source explains that climbing the mountain provide experiences which are important for the recovery processes. For example, the injured soldiers learn to support each other (social support and attachment). They accept the challenge of reaching the top despite having disabilities and physical limitations which improves their self-determination. I will use this key concept to support my object of study which is the role of physical activities and sports in recovery from trauma.

This source is related to Spinazzola et al (2011) because both the sources explore the role of physical activities in treatment of traumatized individuals. However, Spinazzola et al (2011) focused young individual facing trauma experiences in normal life and at home. While, Burke and Utley (2013) focus war veterans. Secondly, Burke and Utley, focused the challenging physical activity of climbing a mountain with physically injured war veterans to help them challenge their physical conditions. While Spinazzola et al, worked with Yoga activities, where individuals were not challenged to do something. The two sources work with traumatized individuals in two environments and with two populations which are different in characteristics.

The next source, will be discussed as identified. I will try to find another source related to trauma recovery among war veterans because this is very interesting.