Sport as a tool for the rehabilitation of people with severe mental disorder

Spain

Day care centre of Mental Health of Girona

C/Francesc Rogés, 29, Baixos 17005 Girona, SPAIN Phone: (+34) 972213155 http://www.ias.scs.es/web/index.php

Governmental

The day centre offers gymnastics, swimming, basketball and soccer. Each person participates in a sports group depending on his/hers basic physical condition. The groups differ from simple walks or swimming to basketball or soccer.
The aims of the sport activities are:
• Improve physical state;
• Improve anxiousness;
• Improve psychomotor coordination;
• Improve teamwork values as solidarity, effort, collaboration, respect (both self abilities and others’) and solve differences towards others.

It’s not a usual practice between therapeutic treatments for sever mental disorder to include sport or physical exercise. It has always been a practice hardly used in mental health fields. Another innovative aspect of this practice is the fact that public sport areas are used providing greater inclusion into society. It’s been broadly demonstrated that including physical work in people with mental disabilities decreases states of anxiousness. It is also very important for people in treatment or passive, to avoid winning weight.

Since it is an innovative practice, there are still no reliable figures about its efficiency, although it is proved to have improved aspects related to work inclusion, physical state, and personal well-being.

This practice is applicable universally, as long as there are enough human and material resources. It is necessary also, an initial medical evaluation that guarantees the non harmfulness of the physical exercise.

sport, mental disorder, severe personality disorder, rehabilitation