 Today, the 5th of September is actually Spinal Cord Injury Day and the theme this year is Access to Spinal Cord Injury Services, a life less complicated and this is a message I suppose that resonates deeply with the No Barriers Foundation which is just a couple of the doors over here at the mountaintop in Letterkenny and it's not for profit organisation and they aim to create an inclusive health facility with specialist neurological equipment allowing anyone with a disability to train and to improve their current level of physical and mental health and Johnny Lowry now CEO of the Foundation is with me in the studio and Johnny it's important to stress that it is about the mental and the physical one goes with the other. Yeah 100% John so we would see people coming through the door and initially obviously I suppose to the naked eye that the most kind of I suppose thing that would hit you is if somebody's level of mobility or say if they're in a wheelchair or if their you know ability to walk has been taken away from these are the things that we see first and foremost but whenever you are working with individuals whose lives have changed you know overnight in some cases then there can be a huge element of mental health to that as well. Anxiety, depression, trying to cope with a new way of living basically and so yeah certainly No Barriers is all about I suppose rehabilitation and improving someone's physical but also really emphasising the mental health aspect of it as well and helping people to I suppose regain control of their lives and just accept kind of where they are but to know that it's not going to dictate the course of their life that they can still lead a happy productive life. And a lot of it is about accepting where you are accepting the new reality and about readjusting and then I suppose setting setting goals maybe small goals but they're setting goals and then about achieving those goals. Yeah and everyone's prognosis or I suppose what we're aiming to achieve with everybody is going to be slightly different. It's one of the things that we talk about when someone comes through the door as in some cases people can be forecasted to make great progress and in other cases you know the injury might be you know say in a complete spinal cord injury where they might have to learn to live you know with you know using a wheelchair to get around it varies from person to person but like you were saying it's all about setting small goals and even in the event that somebody maybe you know is currently in a wheelchair when they come to know barriers and they will continue to be in a wheelchair they can still get fitter and stronger you know and happier in themselves and I suppose it's about it's about emphasizing and noting those wins you know setting those small goals and helping people to achieve these goals you know once somebody maybe has a disability. One of the main reasons that they end up in hospital is due to deconditioning and maybe developing heart disease or lung disease so regardless of whether you have a disability or not getting fitter and stronger and healthier is hugely important. Yeah it's important to stay as fit as you can whatever that level is. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay just a couple of things of notes as I mentioned it's spinal cord injury day today and you're offering free physio assessments to tie in with that for a period. Yeah so no barriers basically was born out of necessity so what we try to do as a charity is to try and create a service where a service is maybe lacking so one of the things in the Northwest we could see is that there wasn't any sort of specialist neuro rehab facility and not just in the Northwest really nationally it's a service that's lacking so what we did is we we provide this service as cheaply as we possibly can. Today as you said is international spinal cord injury day but what we're doing is we're inviting anybody you don't have to have a spinal cord injury you can have MS, you can have Parkinson's disease, you could have had a stroke, a brain injury any neurological condition and you can come along to no barriers and it's not just for today you know we'll be doing this ongoing for a period of time but you can come along and get a free full initial assessment and speak to somebody about potentially you know what you can do and what way we've made people to help. Okay this is for people who've had mostly spinal injuries maybe something neurological that's affecting it severely affecting their mobility not necessarily about someone who's a rehab after a broken leg. No, no so it would be primarily neurological so yeah spinal cord injury, brain injury, MS, Parkinson's disease, stroke, any neurological. Okay and those free physical assessments will be will be available for a limited time just come along make give and touch make an appointment and go along. Yeah you can get in touch with us you can look us up in the website at www.nobarriers.ie we're also on Instagram and Facebook so you can ring us up you can shoot us through an Instagram message a Facebook message any way that you want to contact us and we'll help you get organized for your free assessment. Yeah you have exoskeleton cert which is available it means people don't have to travel there's not many of them in the country and it means that people have access to it locally rather than travel long distances and in some cases I mean it's it's not a not a magic one but in some cases it can be life-changing. Yeah yeah the exoskeleton we're lucky enough to have two suits out of six six in the country we have two of them up here and basically the exoskeleton suits a robotic suit that people can get measured up and transfer into so even if they're completely paralyzed and we can transfer them they can get go from their wheelchair into the suit and then we can stand them up and walk while in the suit and the individual can control the suit themselves and rehabilitate and walk walk while in the suit and in some cases the the goal is to get fitter and stronger and it can help with regulating blood pressure and bladder and bowel function and preventing osteoporosis and these types of things where somebody is completely paralyzed and in cases where you've maybe partial paralysis or you've a lot of weakness the suit can actually help you to get a lot stronger and improve the way that you're walking and maybe go from you know being a wheelchair user or wearing or using crutches or a walking aid to to not not needing that so it just depends injury to injury in person to person what the what the goal of using the suit is but it's fantastic yeah. You've also identified a need for a pediatric physio and there's been a lot of inquiries and the the HSE can't accommodate the the demand that there is for it at the moment so you you're you're attempting to provide this as well yeah so I suppose no barriers is very solution based and as I was saying before if we can see that there's a lack of a particular service or it's difficult to access and what we can do is try to facilitate that and create it in the most affordable way that we possibly can as a charity so we primarily started working with adults but and no barriers we're getting inquiries about a pediatric service and we would be providing a small amount of pediatric physiotherapy at the moment and we're realizing just that the the lack of access to that service at the minute just means that waiting lists are quite high you know the HSE is doing its best but it's just that the waiting lists are are quite high at the minute and families are trying to access the service so what we are doing is we're putting a call out to people and as I said if there's a lack of a service and we can help we will try our best so what we're doing is if we can create a wait list and we get 50 families that would be interested in trying to access pediatric physiotherapy we start the recruitment process and try to facilitate that and employ a pediatric physiotherapist to be working with them so if there's 50 cases of the 50 families that are in need of this service pediatric physiotherapy they get in touch and if you can get 50 on this list that's enough then to start the process to get a pediatric physiotherapy yeah we'll start the ball rolling so basically if we can get 50 individual individuals that need the service 50 families that say I have a son or a daughter that really needs to access this service and we'll start looking at the recruitment process for a physiotherapy to come on board and basically what we try and do is is via grants and fundraising we try and make the services as cheap as we possibly can so it should be more affordable than having to go private for this for this service so what do people need to do and basically just get in touch with no barriers again so if you know you think that you would like to access pediatric physiotherapy just go on to the website you can get our number there or you can access our Instagram or Facebook and just get in touch and just let us know that you want to be put down in this wait list and we'll try and start the ball rolling to see if we can recruit somebody and obviously it takes a bit of time but all that we need to know is that you know the services badly needed and done ago and if the people really need it we'll try and provide it for us as cost-effectively as we can okay so you'll see how it goes if there's if you can get 50 on to that list then you know we'll move on to the next step and if not at least you've tried yeah yeah okay John Laurie of no barriers Foundation thank you very much Johnny thanks John