Walking (video) and patient potential
If you watch this video of Anita making a few steps with me and the quadrapod you can see Anita’s balance problems. Because her brain can’t get the juice to her left leg it fails to support her so she tends to fall front left. For a long time she improved, practicing planting her left foot in the correct position, but you can see she still doesn’t always get it right. She has been walking like this for a long time, to improve her balance she will need a great deal more work. Anita has now been out of rehab for exactly 2 months and in that time I have noted she hasn’t made any progress in her movements at all. Even though Anita has had some physical work from me and her family it has been very difficult to keep her going in the right direction. Now more than ever I know that what she has done so far is largely as a result of the therapy sessions she had attended in rehab. For Anita to achieve more freedom she needs to be more mobile, more safely. This week I had to answer an alarm call at work because Anita tried to transfer herself to the toilet and fell to the ground at home. Below are some thoughts on patient potential.
Patient potential
The message from the rehab unit was to forget walking, focus on other things and get on with life. Although walking may be an unrealistic prospect, you have to be careful with what you accept because you know that doctors know very little about the brain and others like Michael Watson have proven them wrong. You have to listen to the advice, try to be dispassionate and make your own mind up. Walking is not the biggest issue but independence definately is.
One of the most upsetting things I am having to come to terms with is that most brain injured people will never reach their physical potential:-
- The overall experience of the injury and the chemical changes in the brain can de-motivate the patient.
- There would never be enough physiotherapy over the long term to support maximum recovery.
- If the rehab unit mixes too many different medical cases it’s unlikely to have the right culture.
- All possible range of therapies are not explored.
- Apart from physical improvements brain injury throws up lots of other important issues and problems that have to be dealt with.
- Not everyone is as keen on exercise.
I am fully aware that few people in life reach their full potential. However is it wrong to ask for more when this isn’t simply reaching higher in your career but just to be able to have a shit in dignity!