Ken Ware: Helping the Paralysed to Walk Again

Hamish Adams-Cairns (0:00)

Hello, thank you for joining me back here on HAC Chats. This episode is a gem.

Am I allowed to say that about my own episode? It's not really about me, it's about the guest. Ken Ware is a miracle worker. I'm not using that as a turn of phrase. He has literally worked miracles. He has had men and women through the doors of his therapy institute, who have come in in wheelchairs, who have been told they'll never walk again, and after just a few days of working with him, they have walked out, that they have stood for the first time ever. They've gone on to complete triathlons as able-bodied athletes. I mean, these things are extraordinary. I came across him through Rafael Rose podcast. He was interviewing a guy called Martin Hibbert, who was at the Ariana Grande concert when the bomb went off, and ended up being in a wheelchair. Kate heard about Ken Ware, moved out to the Gold Coast to work with him, and you know, can stand. Also, I've watched his documentary, Calibrate, which if you once you listen to this podcast, 100% go and watch that. That's really, really moving documentary, just about an hour long. And in that you meet lots of patients that you've worked with, and it's just a, it's a real tear-jerker.

Take my word for it. You will love that one. Thank you for joining us again, and I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Hello, Ken, thank you so much for your time today, and welcome to HAC Chats.

Ken Ware (1:50)

My pleasure, Hamish. It's really exciting that you come up to do this podcast with me.

Hamish Adams-Cairns (1:54)

Not at all, not at all. How are you doing today? I think so.

Ken Ware (1:56)

I'm great, yeah, I've just finished working with my last patient, so I've got the rest of the day in front of me, so I'm feeling pretty relaxed. But I do have that presentation to do tonight at the International Neurology and Brain Disorders Conference, so I still won't be fully relaxed until after that's over.

Hamish Adams-Cairns (2:09)

And that is in Italy, so that's just before midnight you're on there.

Ken Ware (2:12)

Yeah, that's right.

So it is the third year in the road that I've had the privilege of, the honor of actually doing the opening keynote presentation. So thank goodness on the first one off the ranks, at least I can still get to bed after it's all over. But yeah, it's good.

Hamish Adams-Cairns (2:25)

It's a shame we're not filming this on screen today, because for those of you that can hear, we are on your balcony above your Neurophysics Therapy gym. You've got a 180 degree view of the ocean, of the Gold Coast skyline, there are birds chirping.

This has got to be the best gym in the world, hasn't it?

Ken Ware (2:43)

It is, yeah. The view is spectacular. And it just adds to the ambience of everything. When people come up here, it does present itself as that really nice healing place. There's just some information. I can say that even my eyes have improved dramatically since we've been up here.

We used to live on the beach front down at Palm Beach, and yes, it was lovely looking out in the ocean and people on the beach and all that activity there.

But since we've been up here and I'm looking out here now, there's just so much detail within the environment, all the different shapes of the leaves, all these photoreceptors in my eyes have been stimulated with so much more data coming in there. And so yes, there's things like that. So it's a point to make to other people, get out and about, look at big distance views and stimulate their eyes and all that sort of thing for sure.

Hamish Adams-Cairns (3:26)

I know a lot of what you do here is about calming the system, calming the mind, and the exercises you do are slow and gentle. You've got a beautifully calm voice. This just sort of all adds to the ambiance, I guess. It must really help.

Ken Ware (3:37)

It does, and everybody has to go through that process of doing things nice and calmly so we can actually identify where there's noise or there's interference within their system. So when they're doing a particular exercise machine to begin with, it's like an assessment. How is the person perceiving their environment? So the machines have certain qualities that enable us to take very reliable measurements. So they're unilateral, of course. When they're doing an exercise as such, their body doesn't think, oh, I'm sitting on a piece of gym equipment. It's just having a sensory experience.