For this neuro note, I decided to write about my experience at the Memphis Rollin Grizzlies practice. The Memphis Rollin Grizzlies is a well known wheelchair basketball team in the Memphis area. I decided to attend because I was interested in getting to know more about how these players are able to play basketball while being in a wheelchair, and I also wanted to see how other people with the same types of injury interact with one another. During our experience, we were able to go to one of their scrimmage practices, so we didn't see them play another team but we still were able to see how they performed while playing basketball. Something I found interesting was how fast they were able to propel themselves in the chair, and also how rough it can get. We saw several people collide with each other and some people fell completely over in their wheelchair! It was also very inspiring to see this group of men come together, despite their injuries, and just have fun playing basketball like any other person would. You could tell that some of them had known each other for a long time because they would come in and greet each other with hand shake, or a funny joke, and it was cool to see how they had made some great friendships while doing this. I think that by going to this practice, it really helped me realize that having a wheelchair doesn't have to mean the end of happiness for people. There are so many things that people can still do while being in a wheelchair, and I think this is really something we should try to promote to our clients as OTs, because many of them will see being in a wheelchair as an obstacle. I think this experience definitely relates to things we have been learning in class because we were given an opportunity to interact with people who have different levels of spinal cord injuries, and we also got to see different types of wheelchairs, and the functions for each of them. Most of the players were open to questions, so I was able to further my learning by asking them any types of questions I wanted to know, whether it be injury related or lifestyle related. This really contributed to my learning by having a better understanding of spinal cord injuries all together. I would really be interested in going to more games in the future, and I hope that they are able to continue traveling and making more memories together as a team!
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