How can people with spinal cord injuries find ways to get back into the world? - Jennifer Piatt, PhD

Community integration is looking once again at everything, so you can think of transportation, travel, accessibility in the community you live in. The perfect example, going to your favorite restaurant and you may not be able to enter the restaurant how you did before. A lot of things have changed in the last 20 years for accessibility, but that still community integration is so important. I think looking at and planning ahead so that when you do go into the community using a wheelchair that you know what to expect, and it can be a positive experience. One thing that comes to mind was a patient I worked with where we did a fishing outing with his son. And so how is his son going to respond to dad now in a chair — because their favorite activity was fishing. And you can go out, you have to learn to laugh, you figure out everything from where is the restroom, how are we going to get to the lake—now I need a new fishing pole, I need a fishing pole that’s been adapted. And then dealing with the questions the son may ask, “Why is this different now,” or “maybe it’s not that different.”