Article

People with severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) are often young and need
long-term follow-up as many suffer complex motor, sensory, perceptual and
cognitive impairments. This paper aims to introduce phenomenological notions of
embodiment and self as a framework to help understand how people with sTBI
experience reorientation to everyday life, and to inform clinical practice in
neurological physiotherapy. The impairments caused by the sTBI may lead to a
sense of alienation of one's own body and changes in operative intentionality and
in turn disrupt the reorganization of self, identity, everyday life and
integration/co-construction of meaning with others. Applying a first-person
conception of the body may extend insights into the importance of an adapted and
individualized approach to strengthen the sensory, perceptual and motor body
functions, which underpin the pre-reflective and reflective aspects of the self.
It seems important to integrate these aspects, while also paying attention to
optimizing co-construction of meaning for the person with sTBI in the treatment
context. This requires understanding the patient as an experiencing and
expressive body, a lived body (body-as-subject) and not just the body-as-object
as is favored in more traditional frameworks of physiotherapy.

Langue : ANGLAIS