“I love the video @kateallatt your courage & determination is truly inspiring. You only live once – no we live every day.”

Double Gold Olympic Athlete

“Just amazing & inspirational”

Presenter, BBC Radio 2

‘Running Free (Allatt/Stokes) – a true-life medical horror story..

inspiration for anyone overcoming personal adversity.’

Editor

ACPIN (Association of Chartered Physiotherapists)

Running Free: Breaking out from Locked-In Syndrome

By Kate Allatt

This was a fantastic book that I cannot recommend highly enough. It absorbed me on many angles and I couldn’t put it down until I had got to the end.

Kate suffered a massive brain stem stroke leaving her with locked-in syndrome. She recounts her months in hospital; the difficulties, the successes, the emotions, the people involved in her eventual discharge from hospital nine months later.  This is a book really worth reading.

This book is very insightful into the lives of the neuro-rehabilitation team – physiotherapists, OT’s, speech therapists, doctors, nurses, clinical psychologist. It makes you think about how we are perceived, who we are really working with, what we hope for with a patient and why.  It certainly made me question assumptions I have made as a physio and think about life from a patient perspective.  We all want to be patient centred and are we?  I think with the best possible intentions we often have our own agenda.  I will certainly approach my next patient differently.  And if we feel frustrated, then this is even more exacerbated as the patient.  This reading has already influenced my practise – my approach to patients as well as my teaching of students.

This book also touches your heart as a wife, a mother, a friend. I shed many a tear whilst reading this, really imagining the emotions that must have been felt and realising how precious life is and how you just don’t know what is around the corner.  Kate was probably not the easiest patient, but my goodness me, what courage she must have to fight the system endlessly to get where she is today.  She is an inspiration to us all, not just as professionals, but as people.  Would I be as strong and achieved as much?  I hope so.

Kate has done really well to write this book as she has. I think it is a useful adjunct to a students training, to get a glimpse of what is important to a patient.  It is a real eye-opener to a qualified therapist.  And it is an emotional, easy to read book for anyone interested in people.

“Running Free Reviews“