Are standing and walking overrated? Ableism in spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Abstract

This article examines how ableist assumptions may influence spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation and hinder the adjustment to life with a disability. Recognising the growing importance of lived experience insight, we integrate experiential learning, critical reflection, and engagement with academic literature to provide a reflexive account drawing on our expertise as quadriplegics and researchers. Ableism may influence rehabilitation, especially as internalised by people with SCI. Informed by common cultural narratives, such as the positivity myth and inspiration porn, ableism may lead to rehabilitation practices that prioritise physical restoration over psychosocial adjustment, particularly standing and walking, and reinforce unrealistic expectations that impede acceptance of disability. Ableist assumptions may promote the use of unnecessary, clunky and costly technologies such as standing wheelchairs and exoskeletons. Embedding disability studies into clinical education and practice and elevating the leadership of people with lived experience of SCI can help the rehabilitation field in its ongoing efforts to move beyond a predominantly biomedical model towards a more holistic and expansive vision of rehabilitation that better enables individuals to adjust to and flourish with disability.