Pohjoismaissa kansalaisten hyvinvointipalvelut muodostavat suuren osan maiden kansantulosta. Aikaisemmin palveluiden järjestäminen oli täysin julkisen sektorin vastuulla. Palveluiden tuotto oli valvottua ja työntekijöillä oli minimivaatimukset osaamisen ja kielitaidon suhteen. Perinteisesti julkisen sektorin järjestämiä palveluita ei ole pidetty varsinaisena liiketoimintana, sillä siinähän vain ”kierrätetään kansalaisten maksamia veroja”. Yritykset toitottavat suureen ääneen …
Sometimes when I was watching astronauts walking on the moon, I imagined in my mind what would weightless movement feel like in my body. I got some sense of it last week when I tested unweighted walking on the AlterG treadmill. AlterG treadmill is originally designed for NASA astronauts to …
Be Your Authentic Self I have written this two-part article for over two months. It has been a very unpleasant experience, because when it comes to my rehabilitation, I want to focus on what works well. Not on, what has gone wrong. However, I think it is important to …
In the title the word ‘rehabilitation’ refers to physical and mental rehabilitation that play an important part in my own life, but in general the other meaning of ‘rehabilitation’, which is to restore reputation and prestige applies to all people. Restoration of prestige in a sense that we understand …
Last weekend I watched the Secret movie once again. It was surprising that even though I’ve watched the movie so many times, it generated new feelings in me – or perhaps it is more correct to say that I watched the movie as open-minded as I watched it for the …
On the 37th anniversary of my handicap, December 30, 2015 I received as a present a Mangar Elk Lifting Cushion. The fear that I would fall and would not be able to stand up from the floor vanished with this new everyday tool. The ELK is commonly used in …
One morning before Christmas I drove through our neighbourhood when a long queue caught my attention. “What a rigmarole!” I was astonished. I knew there is a place in the shopping center, where poor people can get foodstuff and I had often sawn people line up there, but those lines …
I enjoy very much when I can immerse myself into my thoughts and feel connected to the consciousness of the Universe. Two weeks ago I had spent four days and nights this way as I wrote one text. When it was time to do something else, I couldn’t get rid …
Cross trainer (cross-country skiing simulation) Eight years ago in a rehab centre I got to know cross trainer, which became my oldest fitness equipment. Gym instructors didn’t even recommend it to me, because they saw me in a wheelchair that doesn’t make really motoric impression. But when I saw the …
My second important body renewing and cleansing detox-program is physiotherapy. The most important detox program is naturally mental and spiritual growth. In 35 years I have gone a long way also in regard to physiotherapy, although I have considered the spiritual aspect as more important. The starting point was miserable …
I have followed a school medicine physiotherapy program over 30 years, in which we have trained my body and focused on body control: on the activation and strengthening of muscles and muscle groups. Physiotherapy has been concentration, pushing up, straining and sometimes the muscles have been full of acids. Because …
Five years after I became handicapped I noticed that the past years had taught me more about life than 19 years before I became disabled. No-one had prepared me for my new challenges. I had to count on my own resources. This resource is the good old common sense. Emotional …
I have been wondering why are waterbeds marketed basically for wealthy people as an ego flattering place to sleep in. According to adverts waterbeds are good for two things and the other is sleeping. I bought my first waterbed in the beginning of the 1980s, as they came to Finland. …
As I became physically disabled over 30 years ago I was very aware of my reduced mobility, but mentally I was the same person as I was before. I saw my illness as most people do: negative. But I didn’t feel that I would be imperfect or IN-valid somehow. For …
In the past months I have wondered what kind of a magic lies behind the fact that physical exercise is so pleasant with my physiotherapist: At best it is not exhausting and everything is happening by itself. But when I want to exercise with my assistant it is ordeal to …
Just before the fatal New Years Eve I had finished the curriculum of my school. I had only the final exam before me that was needed to seal the school education. I had accomplished the first tests as I was in rehabilitation centre. In spring 1980 I completed the second …
After nine months hospital and rehabilitation treatment in 1979 I returned home and all the memories about previous months faded away. I felt that I was totally alone with my handicap. Medicine had done what it could to help me onto my feet. Thereafter I myself had to find a …