Valerie Powell and her assistant Michael Knight carefully lead
Mary Chaplin down the hall of the Wynfield long-term care facility
with her walker, encouraging her step by step.
After a back injury, doctors told Ruth Miller, 76, she would never walk again. With the help of physiotherapist Valerie Powell, Miller proved them wrong and is thankful for every step.
Andrew Stawciki
Powell is a physiotherapist, who with her two assistants comes
three times a week to the facility in Oshawa, Ontario, home to 60
of her clients.
"The most depressing thing for someone is loss of independence,"
Powell says. "So our focus is on function."
For example, if someone needs two people to help in the washroom,
reducing the number of assistants is a dignity boost, she says.
The optimum is to manage alone, perhaps with the use of grab bars,
which allows for more independence and dignity.
Powell is a clinical manager for LifeMark Health, a private agency
that provides government-funded physiotherapy services to 33 long-term
care facilities across Ontario. She designs and implements individual
programs that, through various exercises, will help people regain
mobility lost due to illness, stroke, accident or aging.
Until November last year, Chaplin, 87, was driving her own car,
living in her own apartment, cooking for friends and managing "just
fine." Then she collapsed with a stroke.
Now, brain damage from the stroke causes sudden spasms that thrust
her backward, affecting her balance and therefore her ability to
walk. After several months in rehab, she moved to Wynfield, where
she has been working with Powell since July.
"The first six months after a stroke are your best window,"
Powell says. "You can still make physical gains. The best we
can do for Mary is a one-person assist" she now needs two
people to help her walk, one on each side. But once in her wheelchair,
she's independent.
And sometimes there are miracles.
At 76, Ruth Miller used to drive other seniors around and take
trips - to Chicago, New York, Niagara Falls, Quebec City, wherever
her fancy took her.
Then one day, she was asleep on the sofa and slid off onto the floor,
damaging her spinal cord and vertebrae already weakened by osteoporosis.
"Five doctors told my family, 'We cannot do anything
for your mother,' "she says." 'She will never
walk again.' I was prepared to accept it as something that
could not be changed."
After four months in hospital, Miller moved to Altamont Nursing
Home, a long-term care facility in Toronto's east end.
There, Miller started working on upper body strength with Powell,
who one day noticed some involuntary movement in Miller's feet.
"I thought 'Wow!'" Powell recalls. "I
realized at that point we could change our goal. It was a beacon
of hope."
Powell worked with Miller for a year and a half. Soon the plucky
woman was standing and eventually, walking with a walker. With every
step, the staff at Altamont cheered her on. Two years ago, Miller
needed total care. Today she is independent. She goes to church,
to her daughter's cottage and socializes with her former seniors
group.
"It was my faith in God that gave me the peace to accept (not walking)," Miller says. "Now I am thankful for every step.
I knew it was a miracle."
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