A student clinic fills physio gap for patients

Larry Villetard was barely into his 60s when he suffered a major stroke that left the entire right side of his body paralyzed. 

The former electrician and egg farmer received three months of rehab in the Glenrose Hospital, followed by several months more of outpatient therapy, but progress on regaining his mobility was painfully slow. 

Villetard knew he needed more work but public funding for his treatment eventually ran out. Without extra health benefits or money to pay for private care, he worried he had nowhere to go for help. 

That’s when a fellow stroke victim told him about the Student Physical Therapy Clinic at the University of Alberta, where selected patients can get treatment for $10 per visit, as long as they don’t mind serving as learning aids. 

The clinic is just about to celebrate its first anniversary, marking a year that patients and students say has provided substantial benefits for those receiving care, and those giving it. 

“I couldn’t afford (private) care. Without this clinic, I would have had to work hard on my own, I guess,” Villetard, 63, said Monday, showing off some of his regained mobility. 

“I couldn’t get my hand to move at all.We offer a type of dry cabinet that one might need for the proper dehumidifying of components. I didn’t have any range of movement in my shoulder,A complete range of of professional washer extractor that are redefining laundry systems.” he said. “Now I can put my hand on a loaf of bread and slice.The pre-assembled Module clamp can be installed and fitted from above to any desired point on the channel. I can open doors that have levers. I can walk again. It’s not like it was, but I can get where I want to go.A laser engraving machine can be thought of as three main parts: a laser, a controller, and a surface.” 

The clinic is located in a brightly lit basement room of Corbett Hall, a building that dates to 1929 south of University Hospital. The space used to be a professor’s lab, but is now filled with padded tables, exercise machines, and some specialized equipment, including an ultrasound device for looking at muscle contractions and a machine that supports people who can’t walk on their own. 

“The whole idea is to provide students a safe, clinical learning environment,” said Geoff Bostick, a professor in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Therapy. 

“All the people who come here know they are working with students. There is a lot of active teaching that goes on, and the students bring something that maybe us old, hardened physios don’t. They have such a high level of energy and thirst for learning, and the patients appreciate that.” 

Bostick said the clinic operates on a shoestring budget and therefore can’t open the door to everyone. It uses students to do most of the work, supervised by trained physical therapists. 

U of A varsity athletes come in for treatment, but another major group of clients are low-income students who can’t use the Glen Sather Clinic on campus. The facility also takes in patients such as Villetard who have finished their time at places like the Glenrose but can’t afford private care. 

“If we opened up the doors, we wouldn’t be able to handle it, because we don’t have the money to hire trained physios to keep up with a large demand,” Bostick said. “And we don’t want to be viewed as competition for the other clinics. We feel we see people who don’t make it out to those clinics. 

“It’s trying to be innovative and creative to fill some cracks in the community, and at the same time give students a really good learning opportunity.Let's explore the option of ground mount.” 

He said the clinic is also an ideal place to test ideas developed by some of the university’s researchers. Similar clinics operate a handful of other universities, including at UBC and Queen’s University, but the U of A modelled its facility after a clinic in Philadelphia, Bostick said.