Vitality for veterans: Sports camp challenges, changes them
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Marine veteran Joyce Ralph sometimes stays at home in Massachusetts instead of going for a bike ride or doing other things she likes to do.
The rehabilitation clinic is open to veterans with spinal cord injuries, amputations, vision loss, mental health problems and other disabilities.
In Coventry, Rhode Island, VA volunteers and water ski instructors set up different ways veterans could ski depending on their needs, from a sling-like seat in the center of a wide ski to a three-person tube.
The sports clinic is modeled after the VA's national adaptive sports program, in which veterans nationwide compete in games.
"Some of the more traditional activities that occur in VA hospitals, bingo, card playing, those sorts of things, while those are nice, we had a young generation that came out of the battlefield," said Richard Leeman, assistant chief of voluntary services in Boston.
There's also a winter sports clinic for skiing and snowboarding at Mount Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire.