Autoethnography of an adolescent with spinal cord injury

Abstract

What occupational participation and adaptation mean for people experiencing illness or disability has been investigated for a long time in occupational therapy and occupational science. The term participation has become widely used in the field of health and welfare, including occupational ther- apy, in connection with the concepts of health and well-being since the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health(ICF)was published by the World Health Organization(WHO)in 2001. Meyer(1922), one of the founders of occupational therapy, pointed out that many diseases are problems of adaptation, and occupations can contribute greatly to adaptation to the problems of living. When I was 16 years old, a freshman in high school, I suffered a cervical spinal cord injury in a gymnastics accident and became disabled. After the injury, I was able to return to high school after six months of hospitalization, but was exposed to a very different experience from before the injury. This article aims to convey my own experiences using autoethnography and discuss about occupation, partici- pation, and adaptation.