Straight away, Penny Collins could tell this was more than a physical injury. The man had a lower-leg amputation but it was clear that his confidence and his mental health were affected as well.
Lead physiotherapist at Habit Health Petone, Collins called on the centre's wider team for their healthcare expertise to help him.
Collins is glad he came to their clinic. It's a bit different – a sort of one-stop-shop, where a wider range of healthcare can be offered as needed. This format allows health professionals like her to develop relationships with patients, build trust, and help them in multiple aspects of their life.
"I could see that we could really help this guy, but he needed someone to understand the full picture," she says. "Recovery from any injury isn't just physical, very often there are mental and emotional barriers to getting better too. That's what our team looks at – the client as a whole.
"We organised a psychologist from our team to help him manage some of his mental stress from his injury. We also recognised that he was quite weak in his hip, so a physiotherapist started working with him on that too. What we're proud of is the fact he hasn't had to explain anything more than once.
"Now he's been discharged from our psychologist because he's got his confidence back, and we've come to a point in his rehabilitation where he's only working with a vocational consultant to help him find work. It's brilliant to see how far he's come."
Petone is the latest addition to Habit Health's clinics around New Zealand which practise this complete approach – meaning people's injuries or concerns are not being treated in isolation: "We look at all the barriers to wellness so we can address them as a whole person," says Collins.
This works because of Habit Health's internal referrals process, where the wider healthcare team can be much more responsive to people's needs. It's also much more convenient for clients, who don't need to go from one clinic to the next. The team at Habit Health Petone, for example, includes physiotherapists, occupational therapists, a psychologist, social workers, nurses and vocational consultants.
So how does this 'whole person' approach actually benefit clients? "It makes life much easier for them," says Collins. "Life shouldn't have to be so hard, especially when you have a bad injury. You shouldn't have to run all over town to see different people for different things."
It's not just seeing the physio, she says. The physio might help with neck pain when it starts – but then the patient can see one of Habit Health's counsellors about the stress in their life that caused the neck pain to begin with.
With the team all under one roof, the health team gets much-needed information about clients and can book appointments with other health professionals following on from each other.
"Patients don't have to go somewhere else and explain everything over and over. The information is all here and we are all in one place."
Collins believes health is far more complex than just treating people from one angle, with mental and emotional aspects of life extremely important to total well-being: "The social stuff is huge. We have a social worker who helped a mum with an injured back. I helped her with her back, but the social worker helped her gain confidence as this mum was also managing some anxiety from the injury.
"Our social worker helped her join a local mothers' group and did all she could for that lady. I helped her with the physiotherapy side of things, but sometimes people just need to talk before we can even get to the injury."
Habit Health is also focused on using cutting-edge technology to help people recover faster. "It's awesome to see our Petone team keeping up with the latest techniques," says Collins. "We're using the Canadian GaitScan system as part of treatment. It does a full assessment of your biomechanics, which is capable of picking up a whole bunch of injuries people might not be aware of."
She encourages people to be proactive about their health instead of ignoring issues: "I just hate hearing about people putting up with stuff when they don't need to – like a mum putting up with carpal tunnel syndrome in her hand when she just needed to stretch out her shoulders, because she was holding her baby for six months in the cradle position."
The greatest rewards Collins gains stem from helping people with severe headaches and migraines "because they can be so painful and debilitating".
"People need to understand that any pain that has been around for a long time is really integrated into your system. Ongoing and chronic pain are a real focus for us here, because we feel we can change people's lives and outlook. When it's bad, it stops people from living their lives to the fullest.
"When we help people, we can see them start to smile, relax, and laugh again. It's just wonderful to be part of that."
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