“I wouldn’t have been able to be at home and get up on my own feet if it wasn’t for the care those girls gave me” – Rita Condren captures the impact of the HSE Integrated Programme for Older Persons has on the health and wellbeing of many older persons right across the country every day.

Marianne Goll, Senior Occupational Therapist who works for the Integrated Care Programme for Older Persons based in Bray, Co Wicklow explains that Rita would be “a very typical client of ours, referred post hip surgery and returned home to the community.  The community team felt she would benefit from Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy in her home.  And that’s how we got involved.”

From Bray, Co Wicklow, Rita had a fall at home and broke her hip. She was treated in St Vincent’s University Hospital Dublin but was faced with reduced mobility because of her fall and the subsequent surgery.

The Occupational Therapy team in St Vincent’s referred Rita to her Integrated Care Programme for Older People, based in Bray where received got intensive physiotherapy and occupational therapy period over eight weeks helping her regain her physical strength and her confidence..

Rita was also provided with a Home Exercise Programme, falls prevention advice, a home environmental assessment and home adaptation advice.

She explains that when she came home after her surgery she got  “exceptionally good care. I wouldn’t have been able to be at home only for the care I got with the girls coming in and giving me therapy. I received three sessions of physiotherapy - they’d tell me the different positions - when you’re standing and when you’re walking.”

Remarking how she couldn’t walk very well at first, she adds that “ with the aid they gave me, I soon got the movements perfect. I had Marianne come out to organise things that were needed like a stair rail, different things that I needed, and they enabled me to be safe in my own home.”

In thanking the team and all involved Rita sums it up by concluding: “I wouldn’t have been able to get up on my own feet if it wasn’t for those girls.”

Rita is progressing well and achieving her goals of improved mobility and balance, as well as reduced falls risk and fear of falling.

Watch Rita and the HSE Team