Public lecture: Understanding sport and exercise after organ transplantation

This public lecture was delivered by Dr Gareth Wiltshire, Lecturer in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University, in February 2021.

The talk used the experiences of organ transplant recipients to shed light on how sport and exercise can be a meaningful way for people with long-term health conditions to live well while managing illness. After highlighting the current exercise recommendations for organ transplant recipients, the lecture then drew on qualitative research with recipients to explore the ways in which exercise is implicated in recipients’ complex and individual patient journeys.

Organ transplantation is widely celebrated as a life-saving treatment for a range of illnesses. However, in line with the view that 21^st century medicine is increasingly oriented towards long-term notions of ‘living-well’ after surviving serious illness, it is important to understand life after transplantation brings new challenges. For organ transplant recipients, this involves managing on-going medical treatment, uncertainty about future illness and often a complex emotional relationship with one’s donor – living or deceased. With a growing number of transplant recipients using sport and exercise as a means to stay healthy and live well post-transplant, the lecture outlined new research that is revealing for the first time how sport and exercise can play a crucial role in the lives of recipients as they deal with the realities of a life reliant on someone else’s organ.

Dr Gareth Wiltshire is a Lecturer in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University. His research is methodologically and conceptually grounded in sociology, psychology and philosophy and has an applied focus in both medical and public health contexts.

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