HEALTH & BEAUTY Reach your At Liberty Physiotherapy
No matter what life throws at you, always remember that anything is possible.
That is the message from the team at Liberty Physiotherapy who continue to keep pushing the medical boundaries to improve the quality of
life for so many people living with neurological conditions across the region.
Over the last few years, we’ve shared some truly inspirational stories of the remarkable work the Liberty team continues to achieve to help people with brain or spinal injuries to reach their full potential.
No matter their individual journeys, each person says the same: Liberty
Physiotherapy changed my life.
This may sound corny or dramatic, but these are people who have faced the most harrowing of ordeals and may have been told they’ll never walk again, never talk again or face a long and uncertain road ahead. But at Liberty, they have managed to regain control and work towards achievable goals with unbelievable results.
full potential Dennis’ story
Recovering from a stroke doesn’t happen overnight. It can be a long and challenging journey that requires patience and commitment from both the patient and the physiotherapist.
But with the right support, encouragement and treatment from Liberty Physiotherapy, stroke survivor Dennis, from Kiveton, is making fantastic progress towards reaching his full potential. We first met Dennis back in 2016 when he’d been coming for weekly sessions with Tamar for three years following two strokes which had left him with severe motor and cognitive issues. But in Dennis’ own words, everything is getting easier.
“Everyone keeps telling me I’m doing well but this last year I’ve started to see a real improvement for myself. Not just with my movement, but I’m more focused and my short-term memory has improved that I can now remember my bank card pin number,” Dennis says.
One of the main differences we noticed was Dennis’ speech has improved vastly since we last met which Dennis says is down to doing speech and memory exercises with Tamar. Due to the severity of the strokes and craniotomy operation Dennis had in 2012 to stop the bleed on his brain, he was told he would only live for two years and would have a non-functional walk.
“When they told me I’d never walk again, I wasn’t having that. I was only 53, I didn’t want to
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‘‘Dennis is also happy to be back in the gym which is across the road from his house meaning he can walk there and back’’
spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. Some people would probably give up when they’re told that’s it – ‘what you see is what you get.’ But I’ve never given up even if it has been a struggle at times.”
At the start of his physiotherapy journey at Liberty back in 2013, Dennis had no independence, no bed mobility, no speech and was very vacant. He couldn’t even hold a remote never mind walk. But Tamar saw some promise that his physical and mental state would improve, just not straight away. Using the hands-on Neuromuscular Energising Therapy Liberty have become renowned for, Tamar slowly but surely helped Dennis’ brain and body to regain the things it had lost the ability to do.
When we met in 2016, Dennis had worked hard to learn to walk short distances and climb the stairs. Now, three years on, he walks everywhere that he is able to with the use of an orthotic.
He even walked back into the rehabilitation unit where he’d been told he’d never walk again. The staff were stunned to see him as, based on his scans, he shouldn’t be able to do what he can, a remarkable progress that they’d never seen before.
“I knew from the moment he took his first four steps that nothing would hold Dennis back. He wasn’t afraid to try what I suggested as all he wanted was to walk again,” Tamar says. At his sessions with Tamar, they are now
working on fine tuning and future proofing his abilities to make everyday life even easier. He continues to defy the odds against him and has let nothing stand in his way. When he moved into his new bungalow last year, Dennis did the majority of the decorating by himself. As a former weightlifter, Dennis is also happy to be back in the gym which is across the road from his house meaning he can walk there and back. Although he cannot fly again, Dennis is looking at other options to travel abroad and enjoy holidays again. But his main goal is to get his driving license back this forthcoming year to give him his full independence back. “I’m still here and I want to live my life. Now that I’m 60, things should be going downhill but for me they’re only going up thanks to Tamar. She’s been brilliant for me and done wonders that I can never thank her for.”
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