Jess Cleary

Physiotherapist

TACP Program, Prince of Wales Hospital

The Transitional Aged Care Program (TACP) is a 12-week in-home rehab program. Our patients come from hospital where maybe they’ve been for a few months and they return home and we give them extra support. As a physio, I’m mainly focussed on their functional capacities.  

I have a client story that will stick with me. It was this lovely lady who had been in hospital for seven months, and she had super high levels of social anxiety, to the point she was housebound prior to going to hospital. Her initial goals were really simple like getting out of the chair and walking to the bathroom. What really stuck with me is that as she was hitting these small milestones you could see the motivation increasing.  

She said ‘Oh, new goal, I’d really like to practice getting in and out of the car, I haven’t been out in the car for three years.’ Then she asks to go to a café. We followed her husband's car and they drove to this café. It was not open, but we ended up getting take away and went to a local park. She was really stressed, but when she sat down and started to have the fish and chips she started crying. She said ‘I never thought this would be possible. I didn’t think I would ever get out of the house.’ The next week she told me that she had been visiting family.  

When we see the physical and emotional changes in the patient within such a relatively short time, its’ really encouraging and motivational for us. She was really, really grateful and it was good to see that we have a long-lasting change on behaviours and attitudes.