My name is Len Worsfold and we welcome you to the 'The Exmouth Stroke Survivors Club'.

The club Started in November 2012 with a meeting in a cafe and became a talking point for stroke survivors who felt on their own in society.

The people who came to the first meeting consisted of a varity of men and women with different variations of strokes, from mini strokes to severe conditions.

We talked about things in general, about how they coped with every day life and fitting back in to society and eventually covered the excerising patterns (or lack of it in most cases) and this seemed to be the focal point and up most priority for stroke survivors.

From this I developed an excerise machine for members of our club to use which developed strength by using both hands and feet (upper and lower body), this however presented its own problems by sliding around the floor and this meant many of the members were put off the idea.

So a solution arose and by fixing the exercising machine to a wooden board with rubber feet stabilised it and gave people the confidence to try again.

Next, a pair of plimpsole shoes were donated to our club by a market stall holder which proved exceptionally useful and was recieved with great gratitude. These shoes were used to secure the users to the machine. These were used to ensure the users feet did not slip off the pedal whilst in use.

 Jan Worsfold (My wife) made a pair of gloves which were secured to a set of boxes which slid on to the pedals. This was used for people in early stages of recovery and could be removed as they got better. The shows and gloves were used by people who had severe strokes and could not control their limbs or grip the pedals.

A dial on the machine varied the effort required to turn it and could be increased as the person's strength increased.

This project was developed further and eight unitsin total were given to stroke survivors for their own use with four being paid for by the user, three being returned after use and passed on to other survivors.

A further two of these units have recently been purchased and await use by new members.

The club went on to purchase two Able-X units which get the user to be forced to excerise their minds as well as their body. These were purchased with grants from the Co-op, The Masons and The Lions as well as a small amount from our club.

They work by the person holding onto two handles which are about 350 mm apart which means using the arm which is parralised to hold it, this means the arm is inadvertently being exercise whilst the other arm and mind are working to complete the games.

The mind is exercised with fun games which get harder as the recovery progresses. They include swatting Mosquitos, netting Butterflies, bursting bubbles, football and a card game of solitaire.

Our club has given many Survivors a start to recovery and moved on to helping people with Aphasia aswell as usual stroke survivors.

These people find the library an ideal place as they can sometimes talk very quietly and slowley. Hearing other people talking speeds up their own recovery. Several members have recovered some speech each week they attend and this result is the reason for me starting the club originally.

We have established that recovery is a slow process with the results getting better in stages. 

An instance of this is a member who, after five weeks of attending said "Hi" one week and the following said "Bye" as well. He has gone on to add more words to his vocabulary and we hope to hear more from him in the future.

Two other members have recovered some of their speech abilities over a period of several months since they started at the club.

Exmouth Stroke Survivors Club