A little daughter saved her father from paralysis
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Locked in his own body, the patient was able to speak and walk again, copying the movements and speech of his little daughter. This story can give the key to creating new methods of rehabilitation of such patients.
At age 22, the Englishman Mark Ellis suffered a major stroke, after which his whole body was paralyzed. Only Mark's brain remained clean and fully functional, the young man was perfectly aware of what was going on around him, but could not say or do anything. Such patients are often called victims of the syndrome of obstruction in their own body, and they communicate with the world only through blinking.
Stroke occurred just a few weeks before the 32-year-old wife of Mark Amy was born to their daughter Lily-Rose. But now the young father could communicate with the child only at the expense of eye movement. The doctors put him in a state of artificial coma, telling his family that the chances of rehabilitation are negligible. And yet the patient managed to restore his health.
Eight months later he left his hospital on his own feet home. The decisive role in this amazing rehabilitation was played by Lily-Rose. As soon as thanks to the efforts of physiotherapists and speech specialists, Mark began to move weakly and to pronounce inarticulate sounds, the doctors decided that he could learn speech and movements together with his daughter, who also could not do it because of her age.
The patient repeated all the sounds of the child. When she began to form in the first words, the same thing started with Mark. Almost simultaneously with his daughter, he managed to say "Mom" and "I want". Precisely the same was the progress in terms of movements. Dad and daughter soon began to play together, and this also gave Mark a powerful impetus to recovery.
"The fact that he managed to recover so quickly to a level of independent walking and speaking, of course, is admirable," says Dr. Sirvas Chennu, a neurologist at Cambridge University, "Some patients after such a massive stroke manage to regain some individual movements in years, but they remain until the end of the day chained to a wheelchair. "This is an incredibly rare case that should be studied by rehabilitation specialists."