A miracle worker restoring bodies

My friend Anthony from Queens, has struggled with Parkinson’s disease for years now. The degenerative neurological disorder has sometimes left him unable to walk. But luckily he goes once a week to visit a physical therapist. She makes all the difference for him, keeping him on his feet and otherwise functioning.

As it happens, I never have to try to imagine what happens with him in those rehabilitation sessions. That’s because almost 10 years ago, I got the opportunity to spend half a day watching a highly accomplished occupational therapist in action with her patients.

And I’ll never forget how she worked miracles, least of all now as we celebrate the miracles of Christmas and Chanukah. Her name was Elizabeth Kloczko, then a senior occupational therapist at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation and today a clinical assistant professor in Quinnipiac University’s Department of Occupational Therapy.

The first patient in the door that day was Tijuana Bruton, 37, a makeup artist from the Bronx who suffered from lupus, her left arm dangling limp. She started her therapy pushing against a set of pipe-like structures shaped into a rectangle.

“Push, push, push!” Elizabeth commanded her. “Go, go, go! Good, good, good!”

The therapist then gave new instructions to up the ante. Tijuana lifted the pipe out to the side with her right hand while pushing against it with her left. The process is called motor retraining, the muscles in effect multitasking.

“I’m making your brain work harder,” Elizabeth explained. “Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze!” she urged. “Tighter, tighter, tighter!”

Finished, Tijuana leaned forward, widened her eyes and exhaled deeply. “Wow, that was a lot,” she said. “A month ago I was unable to dress myself. But now I can put on a shirt. You gave me that extra push I needed.”

In a typical day, Elizabeth cared for six patients, each for about an hour. The patients may suffer from brain injury or multiple sclerosis or be amputees or recovering from joint replacement. “Their whole lives have been turned upside-down,” she told me. “They’re fighting to get back their independence.”

Next came Dr. Wilma Watts, a podiatric surgeon with neuromyelitis optica, a spinal cord injury. Over the next hour, she inserted white pegs into sliver-like slits with her left hand, tied her shoelaces on her sneakers and dug her fingertips into a hard green putty to pry loose tiny plastic beads embedded inside.

All the drills tested her fine motor control. As a surgeon, she naturally placed a premium on maintaining hands that can handle surgical instruments with mastery. Only recently had Dr. Watts resumed brushing her teeth and combing her hair by herself. She could now draw a line straight enough to apply eye liner.

“My brain is starting to remember what my hands used to do,” she told me.

There, in a room equipped with everything from rods, dumbbells and cushions to balloons, braces and walkers, I saw struggles translated into triumphs. Elizabeth teased out movements only moments earlier all but unthinkable, every exercise a negotiation with pain, every inch a milestone.

In time, she trained patients to regain basic skills taken for granted since childhood but recently compromised or lost. They could once again stand, walk, sit, bathe, dress, swallow and eat. In the end, patients could literally come home to themselves. In learning to move again, they could again function, and do so at an occupation.

Polly Rogers, a painter/photographer with a spinal cord injury, followed. “I’m having an off-day,” she warned from her wheelchair. “Feeling a little feeble.”

The therapist put Polly through her paces. The patient slowly pumped her arms out in front of her as if rowing. Elizabeth counted off the reps and, ever the cheerleader, coaxed her along. Polly leaned forward, her lips pressed together in obvious discomfort, straining to raise her hand and touch fingers with Elizabeth for a high five.

“I feel better,” Polly said afterward. “It’s because I’m actually moving my muscles. Otherwise I would just be sitting too much in this stupid wheelchair.”

Last came Dr. Jean Gallien, a stroke patient. He stood in front of a mirror, pushing his right arm out against the pipe structure, grimacing and trembling. Elizabeth asked him to try his left arm, but he shook his head no.

“Come on,” she said, “you can do it.”

And do it he did.

“Yes!” she said. “Wow! There you go.”

Almost done, Elizabeth directed Dr. Gallien to maneuver himself back into his wheelchair. In that moment I realized what was singular about Elizabeth — that her talents as a therapist owed a lot to her training from age 3 to 21 as a classical ballet dancer. She knew the human body intimately enough to guide her patients with studied grace. Indeed, her every one-on-one was like an exquisitely choreographed dance, a pas de deux.

So it proved to be at that moment. With her hands on Dr. Gallien’s hips and her foot between his feet as a brace, she went chest to chest with him, easing him down into his wheelchair.

Yes, it was very much if they were dancing a duet together.

And as he left, he flashed her the A-OK sign.

Brody, a consultant and essayist who lived in New York City for 48 years, is author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”