Elena Munhika (case study 1) PDF

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Case study reflective report by : Klaudia Madurska, Didem Gokcebel, Chloe Hairsine & Reshma Elizabeth Raji Elena Mukhina

Mukhina was 17 at the time she was brought into the soviet national team and had no previous experience in international competitions. In elite gymnastics 17 would have been considered ‘old’ to first start an international career and her national team mates although primarily younger than her all had years of experience at this competition level. This may have contributed to a lack of self-esteem and confidence within herself if she believed that her team mates were better and more experienced than her. She had pretty much been pushed aside due to the belief that she was not a champion therefore the national team did not bother assigning her an experienced elite coach as they didn’t want to ‘waste time’ on her. This may have contributed to placing pressure upon herself to become the best and prove she was worthy of her position on the national team and that she would do anything to continue being the best she could be. Mukhina’s personal coach Klimenko, was only a junior coach to begin with and working with her was his first opportunity to coach an elite gymnast. It was his dream to become an Olympic athlete himself however he had to give this up due to his own history of injury and he therefore saw coaching her as a way to almost redeem his failed career in elite gymnastics. This may have caused him to push her too far whilst also having little experience in coaching and almost no support from other more experienced coaches and the Soviet national team. Due to being desperate for her to win the Olympics for their country he saw her potential success as being his own too and had not stopped to think about the pressure he was putting on her and the effect it may have on her physically and mentally. He initially introduced her to several apparatus and elements that no other woman had been performing in competition before. The work that both Mukhina and Klimenko had put into their training and routines separated her from the other gymnasts at the world championships in 1978 which shocked the gymnastic community and saw the start of new skills that would be performed by many women gymnasts in the future. The pressure only got worse as the national team believed she was their only way to achieve Olympic success which may have lead to her over training and not taking care of herself and in turn may have contributed to her initial injury of the leg. She was given little time to recovery physically or mentally from this before being forced to return to training. Upon her premature return after her leg injury she was demoted to the national second team squad which would mean her chances of Olympic success was minimal. This meant that her coach Klimenko would push her even more to practice and include highly skilled and dangerous elements to try and persuade the national team to get her back to the first team squad just weeks before the Olympics started. Mukhina was not physically or mentally recovered or prepared to train or compete in the Olympic games this may have led to a lack of concentration whilst practicing the most dangerous move the Thomas Salto in which she broke her neck.

Personality The trauma of losing a mother in an apartment fire, by the time Mukhina was five had a profound effect on her, leading to increased risks for long-term mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and traumatic stress. Furthermore, lack of psychological and social support after the incident had played huge impact on her feelings of being scared and vulnerable with only her grandmother taking care of her without any help from psychologist. Mukhina was growing up with a dream of being a gymnast. At a young age she joined CSKA Moscow sports club to try out gymnastics, soon her career was on the rise and she was widely touted as the next gymnastics star. Performing gymnastics routines may have been all Mukhina known as she took an interest in gymnastics at an early age. Spending majority of the time training may had impact on bonding more with her coaches and team, rather than grandmother, other family members and school friends (people outside of gymnastic environment). Klimenko, the coach had transformed her into one of the most show-stopping gymnasts of her time therefore, she would be more likely to trust him about her career in gymnastics, and he greatly influenced her decisions and she placed a lot of thrust in his decisions about her gymnast routines. It was the coach who had pressured her to add Thomas Salto element to her floor exercises, which later resulted with injury to her spine and ending career. The

Case study reflective report by : Klaudia Madurska, Didem Gokcebel, Chloe Hairsine & Reshma Elizabeth Raji coach had pressed her into performing a dangerous element in routine which Mukhina know the consequences if it was performed with inaccurate technique which risen the risk of injury drastically as experiencing negative thoughts and minor injuries decreased her confidence while performing routine. Those incidents shown that Mukhina did not have anyone to protect her so she naïvely followed advice from someone who did not have interests in her mental and physical health and forefront her career.

Psychological Interventions Biopsychosocial model may help in full recovery from sport injury in biological, psychological and social factors, in Mukhina case it may help her to overcome psychological issues after loss of mother such as depression, anxiety and traumatic stress which could have had a negative effect on rehabilitation progress during recovery from injury. Furthermore, including biopsychosocial approach may help Mukhina become more confident to express her feelings about injuries, training and gymnastic routines by giving her psychological and social support throughout. In addition to the model, education is very important. This is because, the lack of knowledge induces the risk of getting an injury. Since, she was too young to give her own decisions and was not having the support she needed, she was relying on the truths of others. If this absence of knowledge could be covered, there would be less possibility of her having these onsets of injuries that cost her life and career. First of all, against her wishes, the doctors removed her cast prematurely, and Mukhina returned to training for the Olympics while beginning a strenuous workout program at CSKA Moscow to lose the weight she had gained while laid up from surgery. In this case, the healing process and possible outcomes of early return to activity should have been considered. If not fully healed, she should have been resting despite the pressure from the government or coach. Considering the yellow flags that she had in rehabilitation sense, there were many psychological issues that played a big role in her injury. To prevent this from happening, a holistic approach should have been used. This approach includes the physical and psychological treatment therefore is expected to give the best outcome of the treatment for her complications. Then she would have higher chance to return to play. Other than that, following rehabilitation schematic that Barrow and Walker have suggested in 2013 would improve her rehabilitation adherence and then her functional ability. In this case study, her injuries were not taken seriously and rehabilitation program did not get planned as the only issue everyone to focus on was how to get her return to Olympics as soon as possible. If the rehab program was designed as a longer process and the schematic was followed, the practitioners should have considered psychological factors on adherence then the healing process would be longer and functional ability would be improved. To conclude feeling well is the first attempt to wellbeing and Munikha was not given the opportunity to get rid of her psychological barriers which played a huge impact on her injuries that eventually made her quadriplegic....