Tele-CE

"Enjoying the joys of my work"

Something new

It is a grey, Sunday afternoon and I am preparing for work. Just a half an hour or so of work but still work. New and interesting work. The sort of work to look forward to.

I looked at my emails first before switching on anything else and I found an email from the person I was about to work with.

Val had written to me about her experiences working with me on Skype and she has invented a wonderful name for what we do.

I have been considering how best to describe our work together, but I could never have put it as well as Val does so I leave the floor to her. I will tell my side of the story later, but would just like to stress that we are still searching for a conductive group near Val's home. What we do together is her "starter pack" . It is an excellant way of introdicing her to a conductive lifestyle and of giving her the vital help she needed immediately after she received her diagnosis. At a time when most of the CE the world was shut down for the summer.

Tele-CE* by Val Verity

I was diagnosed with MSA with Parkinsonism three months ago. Almost immediately a long-term friend, Gill Maguire**, introduced me to the idea of Conductive Education (CE) as a way of life which could help alleviate the symptoms and problems associated with the condition. I had long been aware of CE for children, but had not realised it progressed beyond that sphere to adults.

I was naturally keen to access a class – but how? It was August and centres were shut for the summer break and anyway I was hoping to return as soon as possible to the Greek island where I spend a few months a year.

This was how I came to meet the CE Conductor, Susie Mallett. Susie lives in Germany and specialises in work with adults including those who have Parkinson’s disease. Our first ‘meeting’ was via email, followed quite swiftly by a face to face meeting in the UK - all orchestrated by Gill, who happens to know Susie too.

At this first meeting, Susie was very perceptive in how she assessed my problems and made immediate suggestions for how I might exercise, move, live differently. I felt more confident.

Then we discussed how we could continue this type of CE interaction with Susie in Germany and me in the UK or Greece for that matter; and Susie suggested using the internet with Skype, so that we could both see and hear each other.

We’ve had three sessions now. In the first one we agreed the length and frequency of future sessions, which in our case is 30 minutes every two weeks. We also spent a bit more time getting to know each other.

The following two sessions have been filled with CE exercises, sound advice and Susie answering concerns that I had. (One of these was about adaptations to my PC that I might need in the future. Susie did some research when we had finished our session and emailed me with a solution.) The exercises have included breathing and facial exercises. We have talked about becoming more consciously aware of the activity in my daily routine.

Is Tele-CE working?

Well, for me, yes. It has several advantages. First I’m within the comfort of my own home and have not had the stress and expense of a long journey to a specific venue; there is flexibility in that if I’m having an off day we can postpone to later or the next day; there is also continuity - when I eventually return to Greece we will be able to continue our sessions.

More - I get one to one attention and the opportunity to express, privately, deep concerns that I might have.

The down side?

I’m not part of a group, so I don’t get the support that a group gives, nor am I able to lend support to other group members. Undoubtedly, I will join a group when an opportunity arises, but I don’t see Tele-CE as trying to be a substitute for this. I would still continue my Tele-CE sessions in parallel with group activity for the one to one opportunities for discussion and confidence building that this brings.

Session four is due to start shortly. I’m going to ask what more I can do to help slow the deterioration of my posture. And I’m looking forward to a mix of practical advice and suggestions for exercise delivered with a good dose of Susie Mallett humour- via the internet.

Notes

*Tele-CE : Tele : at a distance, CE : Conductive Education

** Gill Maguire : Gill Maguire is a Honorary Conductor of Conductive Education

Conductor of the airwaves

"A smiley pumpkin" by Susie Mallett October 2010

Or are they microwaves or some other kind of waves?

It is not really that important what kind of waves they are, what is important is that it works.

I have just been conducting via Skype and I really quite enjoy it.

I have had this option available to me for just about two years now and I have the feeling now that it is actually beginning to do the job that I imagined it would do.

I had always hoped that I would be able to be of help to people who know about conductive upbringing but are only able to attend sessions irregularly, in blocks or maybe only once a year at a summer camp. All of this may be several hundreds of miles away from home and therefore with little or no possibility of follow-up work.

I wanted to bridge this gap, to help families learn how to continue to live conductively between their visits to camps.

I have been in contact with several families whose children have been attending camps and we have spent some time asking and answering questions over Skype. As most of these families are in America and Canada it has very difficult to coordinate “meetings” at times when the children are not eithe at school or not in bed. It worked out sometimes at the weekends, between sports events and family outings. It has not been so successful as to make it a regular weekly or monthly session.

Now I have such a client in Europe, which makes the timing an awful lot easier. Apart from the ease of timing I really do feel like we are beginning to get a communication going that is working really well.

My client has a special notebook for writing questions that arise during the fourteen days between our “meetings”. We go through tism one question at a time, I show a few movements that may help, I describe why I think the physiotherapist has suggested certain movement in their sessions together, and expand on these when possible. I give tips for times of the day or certain activities in which movements can be incorporated to improve posture and loosen up joints. I search for info in the Internet and send the URLs immediately, or later if I need more time to find out what we need. We arrange to communicate via email if something crops up between Skype sessions.

Questions

My client always has a list of questions ready, many of them are of the sort that arise from being isolated with a newly diagnosed illness. They are questions that I can answer because of my experience, or I know where I can get an answer from. They are the sort of questions that get discussed in my conductive groups.

There are so many questions that can cause a client quite a lot of worry, but when answered the client is often immediately at ease. It is because of the need for such discussion that I offer a three- hour programme in my groups where there is time allocated for a round-table discussion on whatever the theme of the day is. This week we covered learning to cook and mobility scooters, last week it was the best type of walking sticks to use and accessible holidays in the hills of Bavaria.

Having a debilitating disease is bad enough without the worry of having unanswered questions. Without a group to attend near to home when discussion is an important part of the session, then Skype is the next best thing.

And one from me

I have one unanswered question at the moment too. Perhaps there is someone out there who can help to answer it. It is something that I have found an answer to this week for two clients here in Germany, but now I need an answer for a client in England.

I am looking for an individual or a company who supplies computers and computer accessories to people with disabilities. I am looking for the person who knows about speech -activated computers, and breath-activated computers, and about using the blink of an eye or a nod of the head to write a letter. All these devices and more I tried out with my client in the Computer Museum in Paderborn in the summer, and I now wish to have information about them for my clients to use at home.

I have a contact in Germany now I need one in the UK. Any information will be very gratefully received.