Better stands

Jo’s physiotherapy session was earlier than we expected today, at 10:45 instead of 13:30. Jo is not as good in the morning and her left foot gave her a lot of pain. She still managed several good stands without support and made her nine yard walk to the front door, albeit with a lot of cries of pain.

Nevertheless the therapists were impressed with her progress and set goals for independent standing and walking transfers. The walk to the front door has been extended to a return journey and it is hoped to move Jo from the gutter frame to a zimmer frame within four weeks.

Tapping her toes

Jo discovered she can tap her toes on the left foot today. That might not sound like much to you or me but is the beginning of the 4th stage of Brunnstrom’s Seven stages of Rehabilitation, where movement patterns are not dictated solely by limb synergies.

A new wheelchair

Jo picked up her new wheelchair today. She managed a transfer from the old one to the new one with a very good stand and walk around, not a sand and swivel. Hopefully, as well as giving her more independent mobility, the chair will give her more exercise as she as gone up to 17 stone.

It’s too hot!

The weather continues to be uncomfortably hot and muggy, which interferes with Jo’s rehabilitation. In the evening Jo suffered a fall as a result of this as, when I was transferring her using the rotunda, she lost her balanced a fell backwards. She was able to control the fall and so did not suffer any damage but it took three paramedics to lift her back off the floor. The humid weather just makes her left side go heavy and limp and we will be glad when this heat wave is over.

Continuing progress

Jo had a physiotherapy session today and repeated her feat of walking the nine yards from front room to front door with the aid of the gutter frame. She was even more confident than last week and there was little or no complaints about the pain.

She also managed to stand from her chair completely unaided.

Leaps and bounds

Jo had two physiotherapy sessions today, her standard one with the hospital physiotherapists and a second one which was an assessment for hydrotherapy.

In her first session the physiotherapists gave her a big thumbs up and said she was coming on in leaps and bounds. She managed: to stand from a sitting position almost completely unaided several times; to stand and balance herself unaided and to complete her nine yard walk to the front door with minimal assistance and in one go. The latter was accomplished with less complaints about pain than last week and the only assistance was to help position Jo’s foot from a left/right perspective, otherwise she stepped on that foot completely unaided.

The assessment for hydrotherapy lasted an hour and saw Jo doing more unaided stands and pushing the physiotherapist nearly off the bed with her left foot. She also demonstrated more movement in her left arm than I have seen before. The only possible contraindication for hydrotherapy was her kidneys, which have only been functioning at 30% capacity for some years now. I’m sure it will be OK as Jo had hydrotherapy last year but they need to satisfy themselves it is not a risk factor.

Getting better every day

Jo had a good physiotherapy session today, successfully standing several times on her own and managing to stand for several minutes without relying on the standing frame for support.

She repeated her walk to the front door, using the gutter frame and with assistance from the physiotherapists. This week Jo managed that walk with no breaks at all. On the first week she had broken her walk twice to sit down for a rest, on the second attempt she rested once but today she did not stop for a rest, despite the fact she is stil finding it very painful.

I now have a contact to arrange complementary hydrotherapy. Hopefully this will accelerate progress even further.