Patients receiving critical care in East Lancashire can now benefit from a new hydro-therapy service to support their rehabilitation.
It is aimed at patients who have been on the critical care unit for an extended period of time and the 
first therapy session took place at Royal Blackburn Teaching Hospital in August to support a patient with motor neurone disease.
Rachel Jervis, Critical Care Therapy Team Leader, said: “Hydro-therapy benefits the patient by creating a sense of weightlessness and the warm water provides joint and muscular pain relief.
“We are also able to utilise various muscle strengthening and joint range of movement techniques in the water and it is a relaxing calming environment to lift mood and help critical illness wellbeing”.
The first patient that took part in this session has since been discharged. Ian White, a local East 
Lancashire resident, expressed his enthusiasm for this new method of rehabilitation by going on to ask ‘"When's the next session?".
This type of therapy is only offered by a couple of NHS Trusts and sessions can be adapted to include patients with tracheostomy, and other complexities.