| YOUR WORLD of OPPORTUNITIES... |  |
Please use the Contents list coming up to choose an article of interest to you. As part of our 'Spread the Word' Campaign, please s forward the url to everyone whom it may help, so that they may do the same and thus keep the ball rolling. Thank you.
OUR BEST WISHES TO VANESSA - Vanessa is hanging up her typing gloves and hoping to move into the world of e-commerce and other web-bery.
Ness has been with NRCP for more years than either of us care to remember, and I am sure that she will be sorely missed by all the staff, and indeed the clients. It's a brave change of direction and I am sure like me you will wish her every success.
We are pleased to advise our new flexible pricing structure. This has been designed to assist all clients coming to the Centre, whether for the first time, or indeed for the fifteenth.
For first-time clients there is now a stepped pricing structure that not only recognises seasonal variations, but allows for some off-peak discounting. We believe that this makes the Centre more affordable and more available to a wider range of people.
We recognise that for some people even these prices may beyond their means. So for those first-time clients who are particularly hard-pressed financially there are some alternative funding offers and suggestions, including our own Bursary Scheme - see the new tariffs sheet for details.
Moreover we know that many clients are superb ambassadors for the Centre, spreading the word and encouraging other people to visit and hopefully participate in our unique programmes. These efforts should also be recognised and rewarded.
We have therefore provided a scheme for fee credits for new business introduced.
Whatever you situation, please discuss your funding needs with us in complete confidence. We are here to help.
To get your copy of the new NRCP Tarrifs 2001/02, email info@nrcp.co.uk putting 'Tariff Request' in the Subject: header. Or call Anne at the Centre on 01453 887 390.
2. YOU COULDN’T DO THAT BEFORE - Roger Whittle's inspirational story.
(The following article was also published in August's edition of FORWARD, the magazine for the Spinal Injuries Association)
October 1996 was idyllic except for that one dive. Roger Whittle was on holiday with a bunch of good friends. They were young, single, fit; physically and financially. All successful businessmen, they spared no expense on their wild weeks away and this time had chartered a yacht to cruise the crystal waters of the Caribbean.
LIFE was good. In fact more than good, it was, in Roger’s words, "bloody brilliant".
Moored out in the bay he decided to go for a swim. The water was crystal clear. So clear that the sandy bottom seemed to come right up to the hull of the boat. He dived in and that sand bar was deceptively just below the surface. He broke his neck at C5 and C6 and in that instant his life inexorably changed.
"Immediately I had my accident I couldn’t move anything. No leg movement. No arm movement. Nothing would move."
The local A&E diagnosed spinal cord injury. So 24 hours, and a helicopter ride later, Roger was in the Spinal Centre, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He was there for four weeks where the diagnosis was confirmed as a C5/6 incomplete lesion.
Then he came back to Stoke Mandeville, in the UK, only to spend 18 weeks in bed with a pressure sore. It was perhaps his most depressing time. "I could not do anything, literally. Couldn’t hold anything, couldn’t lift anything. So for the first five months I was fed, washed, dressed, everything."
Roger recalls, "Once I got out of bed I needed pushing around, because I couldn’t even feed myself, I had to be fed like a baby."
It was at this point that Roger’s bloody-mindedness kicked-in and he started to take control. "They wanted me to use feeding straps in my hand, so I could put a spoon in, but as I said to them, "there’s no way I’m using a feeding strap, I want to be able to do it myself." I tried to pick up a spoon. I didn’t have any grip, so I tried to shove it between my fingers and just try to scoop food up."
With this primitive method Roger would attempt to feed himself and freely admits that most of the food went on him rather than in him. But there were some successes. "After days of trying I managed about two or three mouthfuls, and the spoon would drop and that was it. I was knackered."
Again his tenacity and self-belief carried him through. "I just tried to make as much effort as I could to do whatever I could for myself. And after a while I started to get better at these things".
Whatever his progress the fact is that Roger was totally dependent on carers, and freely admits that he needed help to put things into his hands and assistance in lifting the arm to his mouth. Also they spent a lot of time and patience picking things up from the floor.
But he never wavered in his belief.
"It really was, and still is, a question of trying my hardest to do things by myself. I got to the stage where I could just about move the wheelchair. I was told I needed an electric wheelchair. But I wouldn’t have one, because I knew that if I did I wouldn’t improve.
"So it was then a question of trying to push the wheelchair. To start with, you use the palms of your hands to push it, and after a while I started to get a grip back in my right hand, but it was basically a pinch grip. Using the thumb and the forefinger.
"I went on to the rehab ward, and told the nurses there that I wanted to be able to dress myself. I couldn’t even put a sock on, and the first few times I tried it took almost an hour to put on a single sock. And I was so tired that I was finished for the rest of the day.
"The nurses on St. Joseph’s Ward were brilliant. They really helped me, even though it took a long time. With their help and perseverance I started to be able to dress and undress myself."
He evolved his own approach and technique for dealing with the everyday things that we all take so much for granted. "You try to work with what you’ve got. If you haven’t got the grip to hold something, then you can’t do it the way you used to. So if that means hooking your finger around a sock to pull it on, then that’s what you have to do. You use whatever means possible to do things. I quite often use my teeth to do certain things, like opening a packet, because there’s no other way of doing it."
It was at Stoke that Roger heard about the National Rehabilitation Centre for the Paralysed (NRCP), a private clinic near Stroud in Gloucestershire. "People told me that all they (NRCP) do is to get you doing things by using spasm, and it’s not really good for you in the long-term. But I thought I would make my own mind up on that."
In spite of his current ebullience Roger wasn’t totally convinced and instead of the recommended three month Foundation Course negotiated a special six-week stint. However at the end of that period he immediately signed on for another six weeks, and has been going back to the Centre on a regular basis.
He notes the progress, "When I left hospital I could just about raise my right arm above my head. Obviously there was some tricep activity there, but not enough to do anything useful with. In my left arm there was nothing.
"So it was a question of trying to look after myself at home. There were carers who came in to help me get dressed and they’d do a bit of housework."
"I remember when I first started (at NRCP) the goal was to use a knife and fork properly, as in hold a fork in the left hand, knife in right hand. At that stage I couldn’t hold anything in my left hand."
Weeks later and after a lot of massage, manipulation and very specific exercise, Roger saw the beginnings of improvement. "I started actually holding a fork with my left hand, so stabbing the meat, and cutting it with my right hand."
Small steps perhaps, but momentous for Roger. "I was still not managing to hold a fork properly, but at least I was holding it and able to hold something in place, and not have to rely on somebody else to do it for me."
Roger is the first to admit that it takes hard work and a lot of application. "It’s a slow process and it’s only as months went by that I noticed I could do a lot more around the house. Dressing was easier. I got to the stage where my left hand improved, and I could actually tie my own shoelaces. Shaving became a lot quicker. And I could transfer off the wheelchair into the car without any help at all. "Then as my arms got stronger I was able to get the chair in and out of the car myself."
Today, Roger doesn’t rely on anyone. He has re-learned to use a computer and to write, and is now back at full-time work. He dresses himself, cooks, shops, and puts most of us guys to shame. "I can put stuff in and out of the tumble dryer, and if I have to I’ll even iron my own shirts. The difficult thing with ironing is not the iron; it’s getting under the iron board because the wheels are in the way. It’s not wheelchair-friendly at all."
Although he has come so far, he is still striving for more improvement. But Roger maintains a realistic perspective. "You look back, and it’s very difficult to imagine what you were like. Because you get gradual improvement you, as an individual, don’t always see it. But people you haven’t seen for a while are the ones that notice. They’ll say, "bloody hell, you couldn’t do that before." Then you recognise it for what it is.
"And what it is for me, is complete independence."
To find out more about the National Rehabilitation Centre for the Paralysed, please call 01453 887 390, email info@nrcp.co.uk or check the web www.nrcp.co.uk
A company or organisation is only defined by the people that are involved in running it. Particularly in the area of personal rehabilitation, the saying "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care", rings true. To find out about the people and to discover the latest breakthroughs, James Blacker interviewed NRCP's founder and chief executive, David Heard M.A. (Ex.Therapy)
JB: David, when and why did you found the National Rehabilitation Centre for the Paralysed?
DH: The Centre opened its doors for the first time in August 1993. The ‘why’ was the abysmal lack of post-medical rehabilitation facilities for people with paralysis. It was clear that the NHS through the spinal and stroke units was providing high quality care in the acute phase, but once people got to a certain level of recovery they were more or less dumped back into life with little ongoing support.
JB: What was your biggest motivation at that time?
DH: We had been to Russia working on a huge project designed to demonstrate the abilities of people with paralysis. This was the Trans-Siberian Challenge, a 9,000 kilometre trip from the Baltic seaboard to Vladivostock. The plan was for teams of people with paralysis to drive, canoe, sail, ride horse and wheelchair-cycle across the Soviet Union.
In the process, we were taken to the Dikul Institute in Moscow, a unique rehabilitation centre run by Valentin Dikul. Having been to every spinal injury unit in the UK we were amazed at what we saw in Moscow. Cutting a long story short, the next 12 months were spent getting 45 Brits over to Dikul to participate in his treatment.
It became clear that we needed something comparable in the UK and during ’93 we negotiated with Dikul to bring three of his therapist here and we then opened the first centre of its kind outside the USSR.
JB: Am I right in saying the Centre is unique in the UK in terms of what
it provides?
DH: Certainly. The Centre was unique even when we were simply following the
Dikul methods. But since those early days we have continued to develop new
methods and techniques so that our treatments have evolved and become more
distinctive. We still have the core beliefs and approach that made Dikul so
different, but we have our own pedigree based on the experience of our staff
and the research projects that we have pioneered.
JB: What are the most notable successes you've had at the NRCP in helping
people to regain function?
DH: You have to be careful in talking about "successes" because this
is an individual thing. For someone to achieve the ability to transfer from
the wheelchair to the bed, to the loo or into their car, without any other
help, may mean the difference between constant care and independence.
For someone else to regain the ability to form a pinch grip can be life-changing. They might then feed or dress themselves, use a pen or computer more efficiently etc. And that means more self-esteem, more confidence and more control over their lives.
But that still may not be enough. So it is not what I, or my staff think is a success, but what the client values as a "success" in their life.
However, just this week we have seen one of our clients back in full-time
work, living completely independently and now getting married. Of course we
can’t claim credit for all of that, but I truly believe that we have helped
two of those aspects directly and perhaps the third indirectly.
JB: A few weeks ago you had some amazing findings, and were a party to the
latest discoveries about the body's reflexes. Can you explain a bit about that
and tell us what it means for the future of exercise therapy and for people
with paralysis?
DH: It was not an amazing finding for us, but for a consultant in a spinal
unit. We had been working with a client, who became paraplegic some four years
ago. She has been coming to us regularly over the years and doing a lot of
exercise at home.
We found that she recovered knee and ankle reflexes to a normal level. When she explained this to her spinal consultant he thought that she was mad. He told her it wasn’t possible and that whatever recovery she had after two years would be the limit.
However, when he then tested her to "prove once and for all that it is not possible" he was amazed to discover that she had indeed recovered those reflexes. In fairness he has since been very encouraging to her.
What this means is that there is no set period for "recovery". In
fact we have had a client with us who was in a chair for 24 years before
coming to the Centre. That person is making considerable progress and doing
things she didn’t think possible.
JB: What would your advice be for anyone who thinks they may benefit from
exercise therapy, but understandably, may have one or even a few doubts?
DH: Come and see the Centre for yourself. Talk to me and my staff, and we will
even put you in touch with some of our clients. You’ll find that we do live
in the real world, are totally professional and pragmatic, and that this isn’t
some New Age dippy dreamland.
JB: And finally, what hopes do you have for the future of the NRCP and for
the whole development and advancement of rehabilitation treatment and
knowledge worldwide?
DH: We have to recognise that rehabilitation in our sense is only a couple of
generations old. Prior to the discovery of sulphonamides in the mid-1930’s
people didn’t survive the kind of trauma we deal with. Today with
sophisticated anti-biotics we can survive accidents and strokes that would
have killed us then.
So we are still learning about the psychology of disability, the plasticity of the brain and the re-development of neural pathways. The human mind and body are wonderfully adaptive and we have to work at extending that comprehension and belief and not to shrink people’s horizons too readily and in a too formulaic response to their conditions.
Which is a poncey way of saying that everyone who has come to us has achieved some measure of progress, beyond what they were lead to believe. It may not be enough, but it demonstrates that they can improve their physical condition - be fitter, healthier, stronger - and maybe regain some useful function. They may feel better about themselves and it may ultimately lead to a more fulfilling and satisfactory life.
As to the future, we need to work more closely with the NHS – the spinal and stroke units – so that there is a seamless transition from the acute phase to the chronic phase, from hospital to the real world. And let everybody get the best shot at re-building their lives.
JB: David, thank you.
4. SUCCESS STORIES - Please share with others any good news you may have.
Stuart House, Butt Street
Minchinhampton, Stroud
Gloucestershire
GL6 9JS
Tel: 01453 887 390
email: info@nrcp.co.uk
website: www.nrcp.co.uk