Constructing Hope

Abstract

Hope and recovery are focal narratives within rehabilitation discourse, which is characterized by its goal of returning physical functioning to individuals in a way reminiscent of their pre-impairment ways of life. Rehabilitation is concerned with coming to terms with often devastating bodily disruption and learning strategies to minimize it. Rehabilitation provides individuals with skills and tools designed to enable them to return to their former life. This discourse of “return to normal” is problematic for elderly or seriously ill patients, whose bodily disruption often occurs toward the end of a phase characterized by an extended period of ill-health and/or disease, and whose embodied experiences directly challenge the rehabilitative discourse. For these patients, the projected future is usually short-term and features decreasing levels of function and participation because of their health status. We explore the disjuncture between rehabilitative discourse constructed by and within the multidisciplinary clinical team and lived experiences for elderly people who have undergone amputation.