Adaptive sport

Abstract

Disabled sport, also called "adaptive sport" or "Paralympic sport" when practiced at its most elite level, grew out of a unique treatment paradigm for wounded World War II soldiers. In 1939, during the height of Nazi influence on German politics, Sir Ludwig Guttmann (1899-1980), a Jewish, German-born neurologist and neurosurgeon, applied for and was granted an English visa. He initially took a position at Oxford but later became the Director of the National Spinal Injuries Unit at the Ministry of Pensions Hospital located in Stoke Mandeville, Aylesbury.