When Sirona’s physiotherapist Dan Taylor asked nonagenarian John Micklem his goal after he was discharged from hospital, he wasn’t expecting the reply he received.
John told Dan he was determined to return to the YMCA Health and Wellbeing Centre gym in the heart of Bath.
And for the last few weeks Dan has been taking John, who is 91 in February, from his home in the city centre to the Walcot Street gym for a work-out.
John is sharing his story at the start of the New Year in the hope of inspiring others to take up exercise.
Dan said: “John had been in hospital for a while and when he was discharged home his goal was to get back to his normal routine.
“When I had the first meeting with John and his family it was felt that the gym was so much part of his life it was important to get him back there and the staff at the gym are a fantastic support to him.
“One of the things Sirona tells all its staff is to ensure that we focus on the individual and what their goal is, not what we think it should be. So I set about supporting John to get back to the gym.
“We have been gradually building up his exercises and helping him to keep as healthy and as well as he can.
“He really is remarkable; we’ve had people in their 30s and 40s keen to return to a sport after injury but this is my first nonagenarian.”
Dan will continue to work with John until both feel he is safe to return to independently visiting the gym.
The great-grandfather said: “I have been coming here for a very long time. I like feeling active and I have always enjoyed walking. It’s very important that people do exercise; not a lot of people my age do it.
“My late wife, Pauline, and I used to go on distance hikes; we both enjoyed the gym and shared some lovely times together.”
Sirona care & health CIC provides specialist community health and social care in Bath and North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire and is NHS and Local Authority funded.
Janet Rowse, Sirona’s chief executive, said: “I feel so proud that staff like Dan are demonstrating Sirona’s ethos of focusing on the whole person and demonstrating our values of “taking it personally” in their everyday work.
“I have every confidence that John will soon be back to his old self visiting the gym independently but in the knowledge that we are only a call away should he need our support.”
