POST-INJURY INTERVENTION STRATEGIES:
1. Address re-injury anxieties.
2. Build confidence in performance capabilities
3. Provide various forms of social support
4. Ensure athletes stay involved with support
5. Reduce return to sport pressures
6. Foster feelings of personal autonomy:
Remember: the best thing one can do is NOT offer solace or advice with words like "toughen up" or "it could be worse." Suffering a traumatic experience with reactive depression is not something one just "snaps out of." The best response in the face of symptoms is medical intervention, therapeutic assistance, and peer support. Social support is the easiest form of help one can provide, so exercise patience with those who deal with trauma differently that the uninjured. Listen to the patients. Watch for their environmental and social stressors, and note their feelings and reactions. It is important to learn how a patient emotionally reacts to circumstances, and this can help with providing support. Be there for the athlete, most of all. Don't leave him or her alone. Provide to them a source of companionship. Do not ever undermine the feelings of the patient if they are expressed to you.
Develop empathy.
- pair injured athletes with those who have successfully recovered
- promote the use of relaxation techniques for reducing stress
2. Build confidence in performance capabilities
3. Provide various forms of social support
- listening support
- emotional support
- reality challenge
4. Ensure athletes stay involved with support
- promotes idea that "sport is something they do, not the sum of who they are"
5. Reduce return to sport pressures
- discourage the premature return to sport
- speak realistically and honestly about the detrimental effects of an early return
6. Foster feelings of personal autonomy:
- provide athletes with comprehensive and meaningful rationale for exercises
- provide options for rehab exercises
Remember: the best thing one can do is NOT offer solace or advice with words like "toughen up" or "it could be worse." Suffering a traumatic experience with reactive depression is not something one just "snaps out of." The best response in the face of symptoms is medical intervention, therapeutic assistance, and peer support. Social support is the easiest form of help one can provide, so exercise patience with those who deal with trauma differently that the uninjured. Listen to the patients. Watch for their environmental and social stressors, and note their feelings and reactions. It is important to learn how a patient emotionally reacts to circumstances, and this can help with providing support. Be there for the athlete, most of all. Don't leave him or her alone. Provide to them a source of companionship. Do not ever undermine the feelings of the patient if they are expressed to you.
Develop empathy.