Physiotherapy – the field of medicine that aims to restore both body and mind

Jun 26, 2022 News

By Allyiah Allicock

Kaieteur News – On Saturday, the Ministry of Health’s Disability and Rehabilitation Services Department concluded its annual ‘Rehab Week’ observance which embraced the theme: “Reflect, Celebrate and Transform Rehabilitation in 2022.”

A room in the Rehab Department at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation

Chalesha Greaves engaging with a patient

From left: Young physiotherapists: Chalesha Greaves, Sorrya Simmons and Elton Newton

The annual event, which began on June 19, was geared at educating and bringing awareness to the public about the impact and benefits of rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is defined as a set of interventions designed to optimise functioning and reduce disability in individuals with health conditions in interaction with their environment.
As such, rehabilitation helps a person – being a child or adult – to be as independent as possible in everyday activities. It does so by addressing underlying conditions such as pain and improving the way an individual functions in everyday life; supporting them to overcome difficulties with thinking, seeing, hearing, communicating, eating or moving around.
Now that you’ve gotten a gist of what rehabilitation is all about, let me tell you about three young professionals who have careers in rehabilitation and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
They are physiotherapists Chalesha Greaves, Elton Newton and Sorrya Simmons, who all made it clear that being in the profession is not only about helping someone physically but it also entails restoring people’s hope and letting them know that all is not lost.
Greaves, for instance, who works with the Health Ministry and is attached to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), said that before she made the decision to join this profession, she had always wanted a career in the medical field, and on top of that, she always loved taking care of people. She decided back in 2016 to pursue the physiotherapy profession.
“As I went more into it (physiotherapy) I was very happy with my choice because it’s not only looking at just one aspect of the patient, you get to look at them holistically and not only is it sport related as people may think but I actually like the neurological aspect of it. It’s a field whereby when you see people progress you feel satisfaction,” she related.
Being a physiotherapist for more than two years, Greaves shared that it has not always been easy but seeing people overcome their difficulties always gives her a sense of satisfaction that she chose the profession.
As it relates to her colleague, Newton, he said physiotherapy was not originally what he had in mind when he decided to pursue higher learning at the University of Guyana. He had planned to change studies after his first year of studies, but after doing a clinical attachment and going into clinics and working closely with patients, his whole mindset of it all changed.
Newton, who is currently attached to the Palms Geriatric Home, said that being a physiotherapist has been truly rewarding. “It has been rewarding because it’s a profession that allows you to play a role in persons’ health also in wellbeing and quality of life. So being able to help somebody who had, like no sort of hope, it’s really rewarding,” he asserted.
Moreover, Newton has been assuring persons, who may have lost hope, that physiotherapy is there to help them to the best of their abilities so that they can be integrated back into society.
For Simmons, who has been in the profession since 2018, and is now regularly providing services in areas in Region One, physiotherapy is learning to work with almost everybody with a medical condition.
It was noted by the young therapist that physiotherapy does not only look at someone who may have a problem moving around, but it focuses too on persons who may have been burnt, a woman who just delivered a baby or even persons who contracted the COVID-19 disease and are in the recovery stage.
Simmons explained that “Physiotherapy is working with somebody who may have had an injury or something estranged in their life that for some physical reason they can’t do it as before. And through exercise, through movement, through training, we get them back to what they were doing in their life previously; sometimes it may not be 100 percent but the aim is always to get you back to some form of independence.”
For those who may be looking to pursue a physiotherapy career, the young woman said that it is an apt field if you are aiming to make a difference in someone’s life.
Just like Newton, Simmons highlighted that “to see somebody go from having to depend on people to be able to do things independently again, that’s the most rewarding part of being in this profession.”