Murderball: Personal Narrative Analysis

In the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework 3rd edition, a client factors are specific capacities, characteristics, or beliefs that reside within the person that influence performance in occupations. That further can be broken down into 5 different characteristics which make up client factors. The first is values; which are principles, standards and qualities that are considered worthwhile to each patient. Second is beliefs; which are cognitive contents held as true. Third is spirituality, which is being spiritual. Lastly, is body structure and functions which can be merged together to be clearly defined as “physiological function of body systems and anatomical parts of the body such as organs, limbs, and their components.” (W.H.O., 2001)
In the movie Nebraska, Woody did not have a large speaking role, he is portrayed as a man of few words. So with this little dialogue from the protagonist, we are left only to identify these client factors through his actions and the words from others. A belief that Woody expressed in the movie, was that since he served in the Korean War and he always pays his taxes, he has a right to do what he wants without anyone questioning him or wanting to stop him. The problems that came from Woody’s body functions were mostly due to specific mental functions. Woody’s higher-level cognitive functions were affected by his Alzheimer's disease. Higher-level cognition is defined by judgement, concept formation and metacognition, which were definitely impacted. The biggest indication of this was the phony $1,000,000 advertisement that Woody allegedly won and he still wanted to go and get his money after numerous family members and friends told him it was faux. Attention is another category in higher-level cognition, and that was affected as well. This can easily been seen in multiple scenes Woody was staring into the distance with a blank face, not listening to the conversation he was just in. The most important higher-level cognition that was affected was his memory. Obviously Alzheimer's disease most prominent symptom is the deterioration of memory. Woody’s memory throughout the memory was bad, but there were certain things that he would remember from his childhood.

In the movie Murderball, the story followed a few different guys around who all had one thing in common, they were all paraplegic.
All of the different players on Team USA paraplegic rugby team seemed to have the same value all together, that just because they were paraplegic does not mean their value in life decreased in anyway. It was stated by Scott Hogsett, that finding a passion in paraplegic rugby truly gave his life meaning after having nothing to live for. A lot of the paraplegic’s needed some type of value in their life to truly know, for them, that their life was meaningful. Keith, a paraplegic who was seen throughout the movie in a rehabilitation center, participated in high-adrenaline activities, so for Keith paraplegic rugby was just another high intensity game that he could get into and find value in for his life. What really affected these players the most in their body functions were the neuroskeletal and movement-related functions. The two categories that were the most important for them are muscle function and movement function. Muscle functions are muscle tone, muscle power, and muscle endurance, which needs to be very strong in order to skillfully play paraplegic rugby at an olympic level. All three of these muscle skills need to be combined together to successfully travel any distance on a wheelchair and to also play a competitive sport. During the game they also tend to get thrown off their chair or tipped over a lot. The players need the strength in
order to lift themselves up and be able to propel their chairs forward again. As for movement function it is all very important in playing a game like that as well. However, since each player is paraplegic and wheelchair bound, they are unable to walk so their ability to do so is not there. Motor reflexes and control of voluntary movement go hand-in-hand when dealing with a sport like rugby. Motor reflexes are involuntary muscle contractions related to a specific stimulus. Control of voluntary movement is hand-eye coordination and oculomotor movements. The last important skill in muscle functions is the involuntary movement reactions which in this case is primarily body adjustment reaction and supporting reactions. For instance, if one of the players were to be hit from so hard their wheelchair tipped over they would need to properly adjust their body so they won’t be hurting themselves if their arm gets trapped under the chair for example. And the supporting reactions is needed to help support their body after the tipping over occurred.

Although the characters in both of the movies would benefit from an Occupational Therapist, this truly shows how huge of a realm Occupational Therapists work with.
While the movie Nebraska was mostly focused on person, occupation and context, the therapy that Woody needed was not due to his mental limitation. Woody’s age in collaboration with his Alzheimer's disease truly limited his mental capability every day. On the other hand in the movie Murderball, there was no evidence, nor were we told, of any mental disabilities that the players faced it was all physical. While Woody had problems like determining if a 1 million dollar voucher was fake that type of higher-level cognition was altered in anyway for the rugby players. The opposite can be said for the players, while they lacked gait skills, it was proven Woody had no problem, especially walking down a highway to get to another
state.