 ontaine
played guard on the U.S. Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team that won a
bronze medal in the 1996 Paralympics, held in Atlanta this summer just
after the Olympic Games. She's been a dedicated, hard-working athlete ever
since she began to play intercollegiate wheelchair basketball at Wright
State in 1983. After graduating with a degree in physical education (with
a concentration in adaptive athletics), she won a gold medal at the 1988
Paralympics held in Seoul, Korea. She started the first women's wheelchair
basketball team in Texas while working on a master's degree at Texas Women's
University. When she tried out for Barcelona in 1992, she was six months
pregnant with her first child.
"I didn't make the team, but I tried out - nose bleeds and all,"
she says matter of factly. "Athletics has been an essential part of
my lifestyle ever since Wright State. I never gave it up. I played through
both my pregnancies. It's been a huge commitment, training and being away
from home so much, but it's been my salvation."
Fontaine has stuck to a training regimen - aerobic conditioning, weight
lifting, and shooting endless baskets - long after most college athletes
move on to kinder and gentler pursuits. She's motivated by a competitive
drive and the conviction that physical fitness can help people with disabilities
lead more independent lives.
"It's just like stand-up," according to Fontaine, now a mother
of two. "People in wheelchairs also need to work out. The healthier
you are, the better you feel."
 Fontaine's
conviction, as well as her muscles, were strengthened as a college athlete
when she participated in a pioneering research program at Wright State
University School of Medicine. Understanding the physiology of exercise
for people with spinal-cord injuries (SCI), and designing new training
techniques for improving their exercise potential, has been the goal of
Dr. Roger Glaser's research for more than two decades. His work has had
continuous funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for
just as long. His international reputation in exercise physiology for disabled
people earned him an active role in the Atlanta Paralympics, too.
Glaser is professor of physiology and director of the Institute for
Rehabilitation Research and Medicine (IRRM) at Wright State. His research
has demonstrated that muscular, metabolic, and cardiopulmonary responses
to exercise can differ greatly between disabled and nondisabled people.
"Exercise activities for people with SCI need to be designed to reflect
these differences," he says.
"Our research is aimed at improving the physical capability and
physiologic responses to exercise of wheelchair users with SCI," Glaser
explains. "We're studying the use of arm exercise techniques for physical
fitness testing and training. We're also exploring the use of training
techniques that incorporate functional electrical stimulation-induced exercise
of paralyzed leg muscles."
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 Functional
electrical stimulation (FES) involves the delivery of computer-controlled
electrical impulses to paralyzed leg muscles. The FES induces contractions
in the muscles, enabling a person to move paralyzed limbs for exercises
such as leg lifts and peddling a stationary bicycle. Glaser's research
at the IRRM, the Dayton VA Medical Center, and Miami Valley Hospital has
found that therapeutic exercise programs using FES can provide paralyzed
people with an aerobic work-out equivalent to jogging. The long-term health
benefits of such exercise include improved aerobic capacity; increased
size, strength, and endurance of paralyzed leg muscles; decreased rate
of osteoporosis in leg bones; and improved blood circulation in the legs.
"Muscular weakness and the early onset of fatigue can discourage
people with SCI from pursuing an active lifestyle," Glaser says. "Their
activities of daily living become relatively more stressful to perform
and limit the development of aerobic fitness. A sedentary lifestyle aggravates
this situation, since muscle strength and aerobic fitness decrease progressively.
"Our studies on wheelchair users with SCI indicate that those who
maintain a more active lifestyle by regularly participating in exercise
and sports programs can increase their muscle strength, aerobic fitness,
and physical performance to levels well above those of their inactive peers.
In addition to fitness gains, habitual physical activity may also improve
an individual's overall health, functional independence, and quality of
life."
Glaser was asked to serve on the Paralympics Research Committee, which
oversaw all research proposals involving the 3,500 disabled athletes who
competed in the Atlanta games. He also presented an overview of his Wright
State research at the Third Paralympic Congress in Atlanta, a global forum
on the latest developments in sports medicine, adaptive technology, and
healthy lifestyles for people with disabilities. Furthermore, Glaser and
a team of Wright State faculty wrote the lead chapter in Physical Fitness:
A Guide for People with Spinal Cord Injury, a sports medicine handbook
published in conjunction with the Paralympics. Coauthors were Thomas W.
J. Janssen, Ph.D.; Agaram G. Suryaprasad, M.D.; Satyendra C. Gupta, M.D.;
and Thomas Mathews, M.D.
Glaser believes the sports medicine developments showcased at the Paralympics
can have an impact on the health and fitness of many people with disabilities.
"You don't have to be a world-class athlete like Pam Fontaine,"
he says. "The right kinds of regular exercise can improve your overall
health and quality of life."
Pam Fontaine believes the Paralympic movement provides valuable lessons
for disabled and nondisabled people alike. "When able-bodied people
see us compete as athletes at this level, maybe they'll learn to look past
the disability and see what we can really do and accomplish," she
says. Just as able-bodied kids look up to the Dream Team, "our disabled
children need role models in wheelchairs so they'll say, 'Look what she
can do! I want to do that.'"
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