Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Lifting her left foot

Jo had a good physiotherapy session today. It began with the assistant physiotherapist manipulating Jo's left arm and hand with some success, Jo being able to move the arm back and forth when supported and straighten her hand and grip with it.

When the physiotherapist arrived they began some stands with Jo using her left hand to support herself. This Jo performed very well, standing for over five minutes for two stands.

Then they tried Jo on walking with the large walking frame. This was less successful at first, perhaps because Jo was tired from the stands but also because they had her walking around a corner. Once they started Jo walking in a straight line she was fine, lifting the left foot almost on her own and putting it down with some determination. It was all going well until Jo bumped into a plinth at the other end of the room, when her concentration went.

Later on, when transferring from the car to the wheelchair, Jo managed to lift her left foot from the floor to the footpad unaided, the first time she has done this.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Different strokes...

It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.