Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp | After a long session of physical therapy exercises, York, Pa., native, Spc. Skyler...... read more read more
BETHESDA, Md. - For military service members who have experienced a loss of limbs, getting through the initial shock and critical first days of survival are just the beginning of their long road to recovery.
After making it through those vital early hours, physical therapists working with other medical professionals at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center’s (WRNMMC) physical therapy department are on hand to assist amputees, who are seeking to regain some of the strength and mobility lost after combat wounds, injuries or accidents.
“Our job, once troops arrive from in theater within a couple of days, is to really help them get their lives and their function back,” said Woodbridge, Virginia, native, Kelly Mcgaughey, a physical therapist for WRNMMC, who specializes in caring for amputees. “You can help them to paint that picture of the future that they or their families have lost by teaching them how to walk again.”
“We work very closely with orthopedics, prosthetics and occupational therapy to do all sorts of tasks that help them with daily living, return to playing sports or return to duty,” added Mcgaughey. “Sometimes there are things that they really aren’t sure if they’ll be able to do in the beginning, so we end up being part psychologist, part cheerleader, part physical therapist, part friend and sometimes, after they’ve been here a while, part of the family.”
The physical therapist works collaboratively with the patient to set goals for what their physical therapy treatments will be. According to Mcgaughey, it is extremely important to tailor a regimen to the patient’s specific needs.
“We have certain hard goals and certain requirements, for example, before a patient can run with a prosthetic,” said Mcgaughey. “They are working toward their independence and we do this anyway that we can and that’s involving adaptive equipment or not, but it’s helping them to reach a certain functional level.”
“Maybe one patient wants to learn how to run and another just wants to be able to stand up to use the bathroom,” added Mcgaughey. “So it can range based on what the patient’s prior functional status was. So for our combat injured, these were fully independent, high functioning individuals so we try to get them as close to that as we can.”
As part of the healing process for amputees, physical therapists create workout plans that help to build strength, balance and assist the patient with gaining back some functions in a way that adapts to them.
“For our patients, I like to alternate balance focus days with strength focus days. When you are missing a limb, your balance strategies are a little different, so we focus a lot on hip and core strengthening,” said Mcgaughey. “A lot of times we use machines that are found in a regular gym with the hopes that you can teach the patients how to use those so they can use them on their own once they are gone and out of our care."
“We teach them how to engage their core and how to take advantage of a prosthetic to make it work for them and to take full advantage of whatever technology they are walking on,” added Mcgaughey. “We also like to alternate days of the week to change things up with various workouts and we have a Friday fun day where they do circuit training or something a little more functional or difficult because they will have two days to recover over the weekend.”
The physical therapy department offers a large selection of exercise equipment which helps patients with working out their abdominals, legs, arms or assist with balance. Some of the machines include an upper arm cycle, leg presses and treadmills among other equipment.
One of the unique features of the physical therapy department is a 180-foot solo step track system. This long, oval indoor track allows amputees the ability to strap on a harness that hooks to the ceiling so they can walk around the track on a prosthetic leg without the worry of falling.
Patients at WRNMMC can also take advantage of many different options and programs for treatment within the four sections of the physical therapy department.
“Within all those areas we offer things like dry needling, palates workouts, core building classes, aquatic classes/therapy and we have numerous adaptive sports to include a return to run program,” said Mcgaughey. “So, there’s really very little that we can’t do that’s a need of the patient.”
York, Pennsylvania, native, Spc. Skyler Heath, an infantryman, who is now a patient and soldier in transition with the Warrior Transition Brigade-National Capital Region (WTB-NCR), began physical therapy at WRNMMC after a vehicular accident near Vilseck, Germany, in 2014 resulted in the loss of his right leg below the knee.
“I’ve been grateful for the treatment I’ve received here, because I know I couldn’t have gotten half this treatment in the civilian world,” said Heath, who spends some time in his wheel chair but also has a prosthetic leg. “It’s really benefited me by getting me back into shape and helping me with walking and making the harder stuff easier as we go along.”
“When I first got here, I couldn’t even stand up,” added Heath. “So all the way from that until now, I can walk around, jump, run and do whatever I want to do.”
For Lima, Peru native, Staff Sgt. Julio Larrea, an infantryman and training noncommissioned officer for the WTB-NCR, who lost his left leg in a rollover accident while on a resupply mission near Forward Operating Base Sharana, Afghanistan, physical therapy has also been a long journey to recovery but one that he says has been worthwhile.
“They [the physical therapists] are really great at what they do and, although they can be a little demanding, they’re doing it with the intention of getting you back on your feet a little better,” said Larrea. “They’ve helped me in the fact that I can walk a little faster now and stand a little longer. I used to have issues, so they’ve helped me to lessen those issues.”
“I’m in my second phase of treatment and, when I originally started, I didn’t work my core that much and, now, I’m going back to physical therapy to work my core muscles and improve my gait,” he added. “This will help me with balance and endurance when I walk, because I no longer have a foot that reacts. Now I use my knee and hip and I rely more on my core for that.”
As someone who has dedicated her life to helping military service members because they’re her childhood heroes, Mcgaughey said she has optimism for the patients she treats and never tells them there’s anything they can’t do.
“I hope they take away a lifetime of fitness and healthy habits that they learn while they’re here,” added Mcgaughey. “I also hope that by the time they leave here that they understand the sky really is the limit, and there’s nothing that they can’t achieve. Most of them will cross a finish line of some sort, and then they go on to do great things with their lives.”
As combat operations have decreased, the physical therapy department at WRNMMC has seen a decline in the number of new combat-related amputees being treated and most of the newer patients are older retirees or vets who have lost their limbs due to vascular diseases, vehicular accidents, training accidents or other trauma.
| Date Taken: | 10.01.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 10.01.2015 15:36 |
| Story ID: | 177775 |
| Location: | BETHESDA, MD, US |
| Hometown: | LIMA, PE |
| Hometown: | BETHESDA, MD, US |
| Hometown: | WOODBRIDGE, VA, US |
| Hometown: | YORK, PA, US |
| Web Views: | 1,226 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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