This month, Hobbs Rehabilitation have been doing lots of really exciting activities in our clinics, and has seen our patients making some brilliant progress – all in all, it’s been a really great month!
Caroline kicked off April by taking one of her patients for a lovely walk around some local woods – she got to really put her prosthetic to the test on the hills, and help build her confidence in a different environment – all while enjoying the beautiful scenery! (You can read more about our amputee rehabilitation approach here.)
Mark delivered an in-service training session for the Bristol clinicians, sharing practical guidance on how to get the most out of the C-Mill VR. The C-Mill VR is an advanced gait and balance rehabilitation system that combines an instrumented treadmill with virtual and augmented reality to create interactive, task-specific training environments. It allows patients to practise functional walking tasks such as obstacle negotiation, adjusting step length and width, and dual-task activities, all within a safe and highly controlled setting. Mark’s session provided valuable insight into how the system can be used to enhance clinical practice, and it was particularly rewarding to then see it applied in a treatment session when Ed used the C-Mill VR with a patient who has been making excellent progress.
One of our patients, Marcus, a patient with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder, has been working on his strength in standing – Zara and Louise really put him to the test with lots of different exercises, and after all that he still had the energy to get walking across the gym with a frame – he’s been making such brilliant progress with the Andago V2.0 and other deweighting pieces of neurotech so it was so exciting to see how far he’s come! After his physiotherapy, Jamie took him to the ArmeoSpring Pro for an occupational therapy session, where they worked on specificity in movement patterns, targeting the impaired movement and trying to avoid compensating in other ways. Marcus also took part in our Neurotechnology in Clinical Practice sessions, run by Zara and Jamie, hosted by The MiNT Academy, where a mixed group of health professionals and students came to the Bristol clinic to see how we use different neurotechnology in our sessions. Marcus showed how he’s been using the ArmeoSpring Pro with Jamie, and the attendees got to have some hands-on experience both with the technology itself and within the context of a patient session. You can read more about the Neurotechnology in Clinical Practice sessions on The MiNT Academy.
In Chedington, they’ve been exploring lots of different adaptive sports such as paddleboarding, which is a great therapeutic tool for patients of all different levels of injury who want to work on their postural control and balance in sitting in the midline, which can help with using a wheelchair. It’s also brilliant for stabilising the trunk and dissociating the arms, and building the core muscles in a way that’s fun and engaging and makes a great foundation for further rehabilitation, both on and off the board. Becky also supported a patient using one of the Adaptive Mobility bikes, enabling therapy to be delivered outdoors while making use of the surrounding grounds to extend physiotherapy beyond the clinical environment.
Hobbs Rehabilitation have partnered with Help for Heroes to deliver intensive therapy packages for veterans, incorporating a wide range of therapeutic approaches. A speech and language therapy session led by Jen highlighted the multidisciplinary nature of the programme and demonstrated how different clinical disciplines work together to provide holistic rehabilitation.
In Winchester, we hosted a brilliant mTBI conference with the Brain Injury Group and 3PB – we had loads of fantastic speakers, including our very own Emma and Dan, who talked about different approaches to concussion rehabilitation, and shared their expertise in a really insightful panel discussion. One of our patients, Ellie, also gave a talk on her experience of living with persistent concussion and her rehabilitation journey at Hobbs – she did amazing, and her story made such an impact on the attendees.
As April came to a close, Alison G, Sarah, Rebecca, and Alison W all gave fantastic talks at the Irwin Mitchell: Together in Recovery: A Multidisciplinary Approach conference in Exeter, covering everything from intensive rehabilitation, the role of neuropsychology in neurorehab, updates in tech developments in neurorehab, and value-based interventions and goals with a patient perspective. It was a valuable opportunity to collaborate closely with Deborah Rose and the wider Irwin Mitchell team across both this event and the previous conference in Cardiff, From Injury to Independence: Recovery after Traumatic Injury. Continuing to work together has supported shared learning and reflects a shared commitment to advancing rehabilitation practice through knowledge exchange.
Finally, Caroline observed a session with Iwan, a spinal cord injury patient at Bristol, who is currently training towards his goal of climbing Snowdon next month. He has been working extremely hard in preparation, and his progress has been excellent. This inspiring challenge has been kindly sponsored by Irwin Mitchell, and his journey will continue to be followed closely as he moves towards the climb.