Post by Lαrα on May 4, 2014 2:25:04 GMT -8
A man on a mission!
I wanted to write about something meaningful today and i cant think of anything better than talking about Dr Ludwig Guttmann...The difference and hope this man gave to the lives of paralyzed people then in the 1940's and still today can never be underestimated. .jpg)
This is the man who we can thank for living longer with Spinal Cord Injury and also the Paralympic Games.Jewish born Dr Ludwig was born in Pre War Germany, 1989. he was the eldest of four children and the only son.
At 18 years old he volunteered at a local hospital as an orderly and this was when he met someone with a Spinal Cord Injury for the first time in his life.
The patient was only young and kept away from other patients and was not expected to live long at all. He was confined to his bed and encassed in plaster he then developed a Urinary Tract Infection and sepsis within weeks and died......he was paraplegic.
The impression that was left on Guttmann of the young paraplegic man stayed with him for the rest of his life.
In April 1918 Guttmann started medical studies at the University of Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland, passing his finals five years later in 1923. It was reluctantly that he went into Neurosurgery as it wasnt his chosen profession but little did he know at the time how he would become famous for changing the lives for the better for so many with Spinal Cord Injury.
Due to his increasing reputation he was offered work in England where he focused on research projects and as the was broke out the government here realised that there would be a need to a unit to be built for soldiers with SCI, where they could be nursed.
At this point most individuals with SCI died within the first 12 months....
So what changed?.........
Dr Guttmann was offered the position of running the 16 bed ward at Stoke Maneville...he agreed..one one condition. This condition was that he was free to implement his own theories on how to treat paralyzed individuals.
So he set to work in 1944..not only in changing the treatment of SCI but also of the common attitude that it was pointless to think that it was nothing short of a hopeless cause. After all...these paralyzed patients were not going to live long anyway?
Well this man would change everything...he set to work by ordering than patients were to be taken out of their beds....and become more 'mobile'...These guys had to work now and work hard they did...He wanted them to recover enough in mind and body so they in fact became healthier and left the ward and had the hope of going back into society with something to offer!
Patients were encouraged into activities....pressure sores lessened...UTI's improved and the patients well being rose significantly..they had hope, for the first time!
Sports like Archery improved their mental wellbeing while learning new skills, such as woodwork, clock and watch repair and typing, would ensure they would be employable.
If staff, or patients, on Ward X thought they were going to have an easy time, they were in for a shock.
Guttmann demanded much of those who worked for him. But he gave in equal, or often greater, measure.
Fencing and once at Stoke Mandeville insisted sport, including individual and team sports, became integral to the rehabilitation programme. And it was the sport of Archery that led to the very first competition between disabled athletes.
We have much to thank this man for.
Thanks to him people with Spinal Cord Injury started to live longer and were given hope. Rehabilitation programmes proved especially effective alongside new treatment principles and ideas.
Good on you Sir!
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