Tuesday, 10 November 2009

A little trouble walking in water

Jo had a really good hydrotherapy session today. She continues to gain in strength performing scissor kicks whilst floating on her back. Pedalling from the same position is still a problem though.

However standing from a squatting position is improving no end, so much so that the physiotherapist decided t see how Jo did walking in the water. Unfortunately she didn’t tell Jo what she was planning to do, merely asking her colleague to get into the water to assist.

Once Jo realised what was being asked of her and that she was in the middle of the pool without the psychological comfort of the side rail, I saw the anxiety in her face and, sure enough, after one step the muscles in Jo’s left leg went spastic and she cried out in pain. Concentration and multitasking trigger spasticity and in hindsight it might have been better to build Jo up to this and conduct the exercise from the side of the pool where the side bar provides psychological reassurance.

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.