Post Rehabilitation Therapy for Stroke Patient through Pilates

Here is a real-life account of how Pilates can be used as post-rehabilitation therapy for stroke patients. Extracted from "The Road Back", Spring 2005 Newsletter of The Stroke Association of Southern California.

"The Ultimate Birthday Surprise"

LINDA, a 49 year-old woman, lies unconscious in a hospital bed, hooked up to the usual assortment of tubes and machines. She is in a coma, and has been in this suspended state for three weeks.

A few of Linda’s friends are clustered around, waiting for something…but they’re not sure what. Their expressions project a sense of weary helplessness. Suddenly, Linda opens her eyes and looks around the room. Her gaze falls on the faces of her friends, then is drawn inexplicably to the calendar hanging on the wall nearby. She points at it, struggling to speak. No words come out. She woke up on her birthday. It was Linda Riback’s remarkable birthday surprise!

Twenty-one days earlier, a friend of Linda’s arrived at her apartment to pick her up – and when there was no response to his knock – he broke down the door to find her passed out on the floor. She had suffered a massive stroke. The friend called 911 and she was rushed off to the hospital.


After Linda came out of the coma, she was extremely weak. She couldn’t speak or walk, and she found herself railing against the less than-optimistic prognosis being offered by her doctor. As commonly happens, she felt an intense anger rising in her about what had happened, fixated on the question: “Why Me?” Fortunately, in Linda’s exploration of the question, she came to a clear realization that dwelling on the past would only impede her forward progress.

Linda went through hospital and post-hospital rehabilitation and eventually regained the ability to speak and walk, though she still had great difficulty with the latter. Luckily, when her insurance coverage ran out, her resolve to recover more fully didn’t. She signed up to be a “guinea pig” in some clinical trials in stroke rehabilitation. At the University of Southern California, the researchers asked her, “What would you like to do better?” The therapists then designed a specialized program for her, working on such practical things as how to get up from a lying position on the floor.

The concentrated rehab helped empower Linda, so before long she was able to turn her attention to another pressing issue: how to pay the bills. She had just started a new job in accounting when her stroke occurred, and being thrown out of the working world so abruptly had severely damaged her self-esteem. She felt she was now ready to take on a new employment challenge, but had no idea how to “get back out there.” While she was strategizing, Linda called an old friend from her college days who worked in the film industry. The friend was shocked to learn of Linda’s stroke and subsequent loss of employment. She helped Linda get a job at Paramount Pictures.

During this period Linda also continued to work on her physical recovery. To her delight, she began working with Halli Lorentz, a highly skilled and creative professional who became her good friend as well as her trainer. By working intensively on a Pilates machine, Linda’s walking improved dramatically, as she steadily regained strength and agility. Halli also helped
Linda “unlearn” many bad movement habits she had adopted to compensate for loss of function. Halli designed a home exercise program for Linda, too, stressing that if she wanted to maximize her recovery, she must be working out nearly every day of the week.

It should be obvious by now that Linda possesses a couple of qualities that are vital to stroke recovery: a willingness to try new things, and a tenacious perseverance. Even now, many years after her stroke, she is still experimenting. She recently signed up to be part of a new clinical trial, which involved implanting bions in her arm that provide electrical stimulation to the nerves. How effective is it? Linda doesn’t know yet. But, as she says, “You have to keep trying. Each week you’ll get better and better.” That is not an empty claim. Linda does keep getting better and better. There’s no better proof than that.