13/04/2011

Primate Gap Year Volunteer Projects Cameroon, Africa

Take a gap year and volunteer with primates. Two of Ape Action Africa's primates received a very special visitor recently - British Neurophysiotherapist Kirsty Godwin-Pearson. At home, Kirsty treats people with neurological conditions, using physiotherapy to aid their recovery and help them regain function. She travelled to Cameroon to work closely with Samburu, a young chimp left paralysed by meningitis and Maggie, a mandrill who suffers severe fits.

In her two weeks at Mefou, Kirsty visited Samburu twice a day for physiotherapy sessions and trained his carer Franklin on techniques that help Samburu use his paralysed arm. The little chimp has made excellent progress and instead of dragging his right arm behind him, he is now using it to feed himself and even climb small trees.

Kirsty also worked with Maggie, a gentle, two-year-old female Mandrill, who suffers from serious fits, poor balance and sensory problems. Maggie’s frequent fitting made it difficult for Kirsty to treat her, but she spent several hours a day in Maggie’s cage, encouraging her to eat using her hands. Until now, Maggie has only been able to eat by lying on her stomach and taking food into her mouth from the floor.

Kirsty is passionate about primate conservation, saying “for a while now I have felt that primates with neurological problems would benefit from neurophysiotherapy in the same way humans do. They are very similar to us...and get very frustrated from not being able to move around and use their limbs normally.”

As far as Ape Action Africa know Kirsty is the first specialist Neurophysiotherapist in the world to have worked with primates and we are grateful for the huge improvements she has made in the lives of Samburu and Maggie.


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