Photo By Flavia Hulsey | Caitlin Freakley, doctor of physical therapy, Fort Carson, Colo., tapes Sgt. Blake...... read more read more
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By Flavia Hulsey
Western Regional Medical Command
FORT BELVOIR, Va. – The athletes and coaches have arrived. Team Army is ready for the 2015 Department of Defense Warrior Games, and by their side is a robust team of support staff, including physical therapists.
“We are here, ultimately, to keep them in the game,” said Jennifer Hoghe, lead physical therapist for the DOD Warrior Games Army Team. "But it’s also to keep them safe, to keep them healthy and to help them maximize their performance.”
Hoghe, who is with the Fort Stewart Warrior Transition Battalion, leads a team of six professionals providing physical and occupational therapy support.
“(Physical Therapy) helps on a couple of different levels,” Hoghe said. “It helps with basic rehab, in general, because you’re strengthening, you’re building endurance, you’re building agility. Those are all things that are important in your recovery from any type of injury, whether it’s a brain injury, an orthopedic injury, an amputation, any of those.”
The inclusion of physical therapists to Team Army for the Warrior Games represents an interdisciplinary approach to health that Hoghe said is commonplace in Warrior Transition Units.
“Health care, at least in all the settings I have been, is really interdisciplinary when you’re talking about serious injuries,” she said. “In the WTUs, for example, we have the site coordinators, occupational therapy, nurse case managers, the docs, the psychologists, the social workers. So, we all get to work together, meet and talk about any issues.”
The same approach to wellness, Hoghe said, also represents a commitment to Army Medicine’s Performance Triad, a comprehensive readiness and resilience public health initiative.
“The Performance Triad of sleep, activity and nutrition is really crucial. Your mental well-being relies heavily on your physical well-being. And your physical performance relies on your mental performance. All of those things play into each other so much,” Hoghe said.
This has been particularly true during many athletes’ road to the DOD Warrior Games.
“I’ve seen it in action,” Hoghe said of the Performance Triad. “I’ve seen Soldiers who were very unmotivated, just very down, and then when we start showing them activities that they can do, it changes their whole demeanor because they didn’t realize there’s stuff out there. It changes their outlook on life, and it can impact their entire quality of life.”
The DOD Warrior Games is an adaptive sports competition open to active-duty and Veteran athletes who are wounded, ill or injured.
“The group of athletes that come to the games, come to the trials, they are just so motivated and so positive,” Hoghe said. “They don’t focus on what they can’t do anymore, they’re focusing on just excelling at what they can do, and that’s just a phenomenal thing to see.”
Adam Cerullo, from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Warrior Transition Battalion, agreed that Team Army athletes are motivated to perform.
“They’re ready to perform at their optimal level,” Cerullo said. Adding that as a physical therapy assistant he’s working to make sure the athletes stay healthy.
“Athletes of this caliber want to just push through pain and go on, but they don’t realize if you push through it you’re probably going to make it worse,” he said. “So we tell them, ‘Listen to your body; don’t over do it.’”
Many of the support staff said they consider it a privilege to serve the DOD Warrior Games Team Army.
“I feel honored to be here and allowed to be part of the therapy team,” said Ellin Rock, from the Fort Gordon Warrior Transition Battalion.
As an occupational therapist, Rock said she’s learned a lot from the physical therapists on the team – and also from the athletes.
“Even though we want Team Army to win, just the fact that these people have overcome so much to be here is amazing, and it’s a good support system to show other people who have injuries that life doesn’t end at your injury, that it continues,” she said.
With keeping the Chairman’s Cup on the line, Team Army is focused leading into the DOD Warrior Games – and so are the physical therapy staff.
“Success at the games would mean that we prevent any major injuries form occurring, that the soldiers stay healthy, and that everybody actually competes to the best of their ability and feels like they walked away from the field having given it 100 percent,” Hoghe said.
| Date Taken: | 06.13.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.18.2015 21:12 |
| Story ID: | 167231 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 251 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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