 Stroke recovery is not like getting over the flu. You don't sit around and wait to get better. You have to work and challenge yourself all the time. That's the one that I want to go back to normal life. I remember this one physical therapist telling me, you know, Mark, you need to train like you're training for the Olympics. Henry Kaiser's son, Henry Jr., was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1945. At that time, MS was considered a fatal and hopeless disease, and Henry Sr. looked for the best hope he could find. Kaiser was a man of action, building highways, dams, ships, always viewing, in his words, problems as opportunities in work clothes. When he read that an extraordinary team in Washington, D.C., Dr. Herman Cabot and physical therapist Maggie Knot were using innovative approaches for individuals with multiple sclerosis and other disabling diseases, he immediately wanted to know more. He asked Sidney Garfield, the physician with whom he co-founded Kaiser Permanente, to investigate. Dr. Cabot was using a new medication. It wasn't a new medication. The medication had been used for a long time called prostegmine. It had been used for other purposes, but he was using it on multiple sclerosis patients and relaxed their spasm and so they were able to move. Cabot and Knot also developed a new philosophy of practice and technique in physical therapy. Early after the diagnosis, they would use the techniques to facilitate movement and improve function. He had people walking. You hadn't walked for years. Garfield put Henry Kaiser Jr. in the care of Herman Cabot and Maggie Knot and Henry Jr. began steadily improving. Garfield was so impressed, he sent several of his physicians to learn more about the work Cabot was doing. They spent six months with Cabot and then reported to me that the work was really worthwhile that he was doing a lot of good for these people. I decided to sponsor Cabot, bring him into our operations. And that's how the Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center, first known as the Cabot Kaiser Institute in Valeo, California, was born. I feel a very strong connection to Dr. Cabot and Maggie Knot because their priorities and their focus are very similar to mine and to the centers at this point in time, 60 years later. Dr. Cabot had a different approach to patients who had been diagnosed with disabling conditions, children and adults, before the advent of rehabilitation medicine. The view was that these people should be confined to bed or confined to a wheelchair and that there was really no hope for their recovery. So Dr. Cabot's approach, Maggie Knot's approach, looking at patients' strengths and helping them to compensate for the impairments as well as promoting the recovery of function through a scientifically based principled practice was really, really a revolutionary idea. Our whole theory is one of maximal resistance, manual maximal resistance. We must get the patient to do as much as he possibly can through whatever range of motion he can participate. Well, certainly Maggie's functional approach was based, very strongly based in Dr. Cabot's philosophical and scientific approach, which was building rudimentary function and then developing even more sophisticated function. Dr. Cabot's and Maggie Knot's outcomes really proved what we now today would say is the science of neuroplasticity. That is understanding that the brain has a great capacity to reorganize, I suppose we could say, rewire itself. An early group of patients treated at the Rehabilitation Center were severely injured coal miners from Appalachia brought to California by rail under special arrangement with the United Mine Workers Union. In Oakland, caravans of ambulances awaited and Dr. Cabot welcomed some of the first. Prior to rehab, these individuals had no hope for participating in life's many activities. Eventually, many of them were able to get back home to fulfilling activities in every sector of life. Soon, patients with multiple sclerosis and mining injuries were joined by patients with a history of polio and other disabling illnesses and injuries. The program spread worldwide through clinical practice, training and research. It was known as the Cabot Method and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation, or PNF. Since 1947, KFRC has treated thousands of patients with acquired neurological disorders, trauma, neuromuscular and orthopedic conditions. One of the United Mine Workers, Harold Wilson, had injured his spinal cord at age 21 and the mine cave-in that resulted in paraplegia. He became one of the first in a long line of spirited Vallejo patients to demonstrate what could be done once their rehabilitation was complete. After his time at the Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center, Harold earned a degree in accounting and went to work for Kaiser Permanente as a financial analyst. When the Bay Area Rapid Transit System was being planned, he waged an almost single-handed campaign and used his financial expertise to help make Bart the first handicapped accessible train system in the world. Shelly Bikoff, seen receiving therapy in 1950, was an avid tennis player when she contracted polio and was at the Cabot Kaiser Institute at the same time as the miners. Now I think it's remarkable that I reached a stage where I was stable and that I could actually stand on a court and turn around and do a backhand and this is the way that I did a serve, although I have no arm, I would throw it up with this hand and come down like that. Kevin Goh had a stroke when exercising on a treadmill. When this interview took place, he had been at the Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center for only a week but was regaining function. No, you're going to walk. They pushed me on the high level and tried to make me get better and better. I see I can improve a lot. Mark Wellman started mountaineering as a teenager. In 1982, he was 22 years old and climbing a mountain in the remote part of the California Sierra Nevada. He fell 100 feet and sustained an injury to his spinal cord that resulted in paraplegia. I wouldn't be doing what I've done the last 25 years if I didn't go through physical rehabilitation. I mean, I really attribute that to my success today from what I've accomplished in the last 25 years. Climbing El Capitan twice, spending 13 days on half dome. What happened to me was a really negative thing at the time, fate worse than death. Turning that around into something positive, I mean, now I make my living as a speaker, an outdoor adventurer, equipment designer, do some film production work. You know, I took this tragedy and turned it into something very positive. After working in the business world while raising her family, artist Alison Shapiro had landed a dream come true job illustrating a children's book. Just as she started the project, she experienced two brain stem strokes in a 24-hour period, resulting in loss of motor control, slurred speech, and blurred vision. But while at the Kaiser Foundation Rehabilitation Center, she attempted to draw. And this was the best that I could draw. When I did this, I cried. I had no idea if I'd ever be able to paint again or finish that book. After months of hard work, Alison regained her fine motor control, created some sample drawings, and convinced the publisher and author to allow her to finish illustrating the book. In my personal experience of regaining function, the most important thing for me to remember is that the brain is very plastic and it's able to rewire itself in ways that we really don't understand. Every day, every week, I'm seeing patients who come in with catastrophic events that really change their lives forever. And instead of that being a hopeless situation, there's reason for hopefulness and people can improve. And they improve because of the scientific basis of what we do and of the persistence of continuing to provide therapy. The approaches of Dr. Cabot and Maggie Knott are the same approaches we're using today, and we are having the same excellent outcomes. And that's what's really gratifying about working here. I expected that rehab would fix me. What I learned was that rehab would teach me how to fix myself. And that's what's worth celebrating.