The Impact of Mental Health on Injury Recovery $0.00

The Impact of Mental Health on Injury Recovery

By: Rebecca Moore |
The Impact of Mental Health on Injury Recovery

This week was National Rehabilitation Awareness Week: a time to educate people about the benefits and impact of rehabilitation and celebrate the professionals who increase opportunities for people with disabilities to live to their fullest potential. In most instances, rehabilitation is referred to as the physical activities that heal and optimize the musculoskeletal system. However, this overlooks the important role mental health plays in the post-injury phase. Today, we’re honoring National Rehabilitation Awareness Week by covering the ways in which you can help your patients stay positive and engaged to increase their recovery outcomes.

Adverse Post-Injury Psychological Reactions

Adverse Post-Injury Psychological Reactions


Whether it’s a broken knee or spinal trauma, injuries change a patient’s life and routine drastically. Reactions to this interruption in the daily norm will vary from person to person depending on personality and psychological factors, but you should prepare your patients to handle this transition. For example, patients who can no longer participate in activities that bring them joy or stress relief like sports can experience frustration and sadness. People who can no longer be as socially active as they once were may experience feelings of isolation. People who are not able to continue working may feel a lack of purpose or loss of identity. Other emotional responses to include1:

  • Irritation
  • Denial
  • Guilt
  • Anger
  • Withdrawal
  • Anxiety
  • Disengagement
  • Depression
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Problematic emotional reactions occur when symptoms do not resolve or worsen over time, or the severity of the symptoms seems excessive relative to other patients.1 If your patient is exhibiting any of the warning signs in the table below, you can bet that he or she will require additional psychological support throughout the rehabilitation journey.

PROBLEMATIC EMOTIONAL REACTIONS (EXAMPLES):

Persistent Symptoms

Worsening Symptoms

Excessive Symptoms

  • Alterations of appetite
  • Sleep disturbance
  • Irritability
  • Alterations of appetite into disordered eating
  • Sadness into depression
  • Lack of motivation into apathy
  • Disengagement into alienation
  • Pain behaviors
  • Excessive anger or rage
  • Frequent crying or emotional outbursts
  • Substance abuse
How Mental Health Can Impact Injury Rehabilitation

How Mental Health Can Impact Injury Rehabilitation


  • Even if your patients have the physical ability to do their rehabilitation programs, they need their mental health to complete it to the best of their ability. While you’re monitoring for the signs of psychological distress, be on the lookout for some ways in which emotional decline can be impacting your patients’ outcomes, like:

Lack of Motivation

If your patients are experiencing emotions like sadness, frustration or withdrawal, feelings of hopelessness can keep them from staying faithful to their rehab. This can also stem from the rehabilitation timeline; while injuries like an ACL tear have a somewhat predictable timeline for rehab and recovery, the timeline for an injury like a concussion is generally unknown.2 Without a promised date they can return to activity and their daily routines, patients will find it difficult to stay motivated.

Fear of Re-injury

Post-injury, it’s natural for patients to play the incident back in their heads to analyze the situation, figure out what went wrong and decide how to avoid it next time. Unfortunately, for patients experiencing problematic emotional reactions, this activity can create further fear and cause an unhealthy level over overthinking. To identify patients with fear of re-injury, be on the lookout for hesitation, uncertainty, and potential emotional outbursts during rehabilitation.

Persistent Denial

Denial can manifest in a few ways during the rehabilitation process, but one of the most common is denial of injury severity.1 Patients’ emotions may compel them to think that the injury isn’t as bad as healthcare professionals say it is, or the recovery process you’ve created doesn’t apply to them. In these situations, a mixture of emotion and ego can cause patients to skip rehabilitation and disobey limitations set by clinicians.

6 Ways to Support Your Patients Mental Health

6 Ways to Support Your Patients’ Mental Health


If you want to enhance your patient’s psychological wellbeing to help them through rehab, here are six methods you can try with every single patient:

  1. Educate. The more your patients understand their injury and the recovery process, the more equipped they will be to overcome it. Make sure you present the information in a way that the patient will understand, and dispel any misinformation the patient may have read on the internet or heard from others.
  2. Build trust. Injured patients can experience a range of emotions that make it difficult for care network members to establish rapport. Listening to your patients is particularly important, not only to make a medical diagnosis but also to assess and monitor their emotional state.1
  3. Set goals. If the patients have periodic, measurable goals to achieve, they may be more motivated and enthusiastic to complete their rehabilitation.
  4. Create a network. Your patients are only with you a certain amount of hours a week. Who’s going to be there for them when you’re not there? Help your patients build a social support system with family, friends, colleagues and peers.
  5. Seek additional help. As qualified as you are to take your patients through the rehabilitation process, your skills can only go so far. Be sure to have a qualified mental health specialist ready for referrals if your patients need additional psychological support.
  6. Try stress coping skills. Injured athletes can experience considerable stress throughout the injury and rehabilitation process. Psychological and physical strategies will enhance the recovery process.1

SELECTED TECHNIQUES FOR COPING WITH STRESS:

Cognitive-Based Techniques

Somatic-Based Techniques

Cognitive Behavioral-Techniques

  • Thought stopping
  • Thought replacement and imagery
  • Positive self-talk
  • Slow, deep or centered breathing,
  • Progressive muscle relaxation
  • Biofeedback training
  • Goal setting
  • Stress management training

Thank You from Performance Health Academy


To all of the dedicated hands-on healthcare professionals who dedicate your lives to helping others heal, we thank you and support you! If you’d like to observe National Rehabilitation Awareness Week, learn more about the history behind the celebration, consider purchasing rehabilitation awareness gear and share with your colleagues on Facebook.

Resources

  1. https://www.sportsmed.org/AOSSMIMIS/members/downloads/education/ConsensusStatements/PsychologicalIssues.pdf
  2. http://www.ncaa.org/sport-science-institute/mind-body-and-sport-how-being-injured-affects-mental-health
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