In life, there is no one size fits all and that’s certainly true of providing disability support services to kids, young people and adults. Having the ability to be able to support our clients, whether it’s face to face, via telehealth or with programs created by therapists, it’s important to us that our clients can access their services anywhere.

Whether it be from home, at school or in the local park, Novita’s number one priority is to make sure that services are tailored to our clients’ needs in every way possible.

Reilly Heading is living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (a degenerative condition) and is mobilising thanks to his new powered wheelchair, which Novita physiotherapist Emily vanRuth has been able to incorporate into Reilly’s therapy.

Emily has created an individualised yoga program for Reilly to use at home in his wheelchair, which is based on his goals around maintaining muscle range and function.

“Reilly and his mother wanted a program that Reilly could do in his chair as independently as possible that would stretch his muscles,” says Emily.

Natasha Heading, Reilly’s mother, says that being able to be connected from their home via telehealth to continue receiving services has meant Reilly is still able to work toward his goals whilst staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Reilly has found it (telehealth) great, as he was at home without a lot of outside social interaction during isolation and it was easy to work around our schedule as we didn’t need to travel.”

“Emily is lovely and has a great calming nature and positive outlook on life, and Reilly’s personal motivation to continue doing the stretches outside of the telehealth sessions without assistance has improved since accessing his services remotely.”

Emily created Reilly’s program and then used telehealth to deliver the service as it allowed her to go through the exercises with both Reilly and his mum.

“We scheduled a fortnightly telehealth session to touch base and go through the program and discuss how Reilly was going with the new goals we had set. The fortnightly telehealth session helped Reilly to be motivated and accountable to achieving his goals of stretching regularly, standing up to hug his mum using his sit to stand powered wheelchair, and again using his wheelchair to stand up in the kitchen and prepare breakfast for his mum’s birthday.”