One of Britain’s "best hopes of a medal" at the Brazil Paralympics has
been told she can no longer compete after being told her disability is
“psychological” rather than physical, according to Dean Kirby of the London INDEPENDENT. Charlotte Wilkinson-Burnett, 23, who has been in a
wheelchair for four years since she slipped in a shower in '11, "won
gold at the Canoe Sprint World Cup in the summer." But
tests by doctors have shown she has “conversion disorder,” which causes
people to suffer from symptoms such as paralysis without any
identifiable physical cause. Wilkinson-Burnett said she has been left “heartbroken” after being told
by British Canoeing that "she no longer qualified under International Canoe
Federation rules." Wilkinson-Burnett, from Leicestershire, was an England U21 hockey player "before her accident at a summer school" in the U.S. in '11. She says she has no feeling from the chest down. She
"was diagnosed with conversion disorder after extensive investigations" at
hospitals in Nottingham, Leicester and the U.S. (
INDEPENDENT, 9/8).
