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Reaching beyond your goals with physiotherapy - By Janice Centurione
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"From wheelchair to walking - one woman’s amazing journey"  |
As physiotherapists, we have the privilege of working with all kinds of people. In January of 2011, I began to treat Laurie: someone who had a C3-C4 incomplete spinal cord injury in 1994 after being affected by the autoimmune disorder Transverse Myelitis. She had up until a year and a half before I met her been using a power wheelchair. Only recently she found the ability to use a manual assist wheelchair.
With her new found strength she began to set higher goals for herself and that is when I was able to work with Laurie to achieve those goals. When we first met, her main goals were to  independently sit from a lying position and to walk with a walker functionally indoors. These were great goals and what we discovered along the way was how working towards these two goals could make other parts of life easier.
It started with becoming quick and efficient at transfers from the wheelchair to another surface. Before physiotherapy, Laurie would remain in her wheelchair for most activities or make a check list of needed items to set up before transferring to a new surface. With ease of transfers, Laurie no longer thinks twice about transferring to the couch for a change of atmosphere.
While strengthening and working on independence with walking, we were making gains with sitting from a lying position. Becoming independent with this skill opened up a whole new world for her; travelling without an attendant.
Perseverance, dedication and open communication between the physiotherapist and client has produced great outcomes. Laurie has made rehab a focus in her life and managed to incorporate what she has learned in physiotherapy into her work, home and recreation.
With this dedication Laurie now walks at work and at home with her walker and she is able to climb stairs with confidence. She continues to set goals around walking with a cane and increasing her speed of movement which is our current focus.
Some of the benefits of physiotherapy that Laurie has experienced are: increased strength and endurance, increased range of motion in most joints, decrease in tone and spasticity, even decreasing related medications, improved posture and best of all increased independence with mobility. The most rewarding part of all is being able to walk up to someone and have a conversation with them eye to eye.
There are many more goals that still need to be achieved. Isn’t that what physiotherapists are there to help with?
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