A heart for helping

children

By MARIA McBRIDE BUCCIFERRO

For someone who never intended to work with kids, Karen Dake is making big differences in young lives as a pediatric physical therapist.

It’s not that she didn’t like kids. She has two sons of her own. But when she enrolled at Sage College to study physical therapy, she didn’t think she’d be challenged enough working with children. As a stay-at-home mom, Dake said, working with kids was “something I was already good at.” But an emotional experience changed her mind — and her life.

“We took a field trip to a pediatric brain injury rehabilitation center in Niskayuna, and I was totally wrecked by the experience. There was this child there who looked just like somebody who was on my son’s baseball team, who was very, very profoundly disabled. He was hit by a car riding his bike. I was so destroyed by this experience that I went there for my eight-week internship, and they hired me after graduation.”

After two years at the rehab center in Niskayuna, Dake worked as a physical therapist for the Glens Falls School District for four years, then at Wesley, before designing and building her own clinic. “Every feature that’s in it was drawn from my experiences working in all the other places,” she said. “It’s been a long ride.”

She calls her cheerful physical therapy clinic in Saratoga Springs Minor Improvements PT, but the improvements she fosters in children and their families are major.

Some children come in after a ski injury; some need help catching up with developmental milestones. Others will visit her building at the corner of West Avenue and West Circular Street until they’re 21, to stay as healthy and as mobile as they can be.

“It’s a wonderful place,” said Michael Mauro of Ballston Spa, as he strapped his son Christopher, 8, into his car seat. Christopher has been Dake’s patient all his life. “I can’t imagine something like this not being in Christopher’s life. This is what has really kept him alive.”

Christopher is very small for his age, with several disabilities. “He’s got scoliosis. He’s basically a quadriplegic. Visually impaired,” Mauro said.

But it’s not all about children like Chris. There are children who walk out of here fine after therapy sessions are over — younger children who just need to catch up to their age.

Christopher is in a different category. He needs this to keep his body moving and to stay healthy. He has breathing issues where he needs upper respiratory therapy,” Mauro said. “He gets aqua therapy here, too.”

Mauro lifted his son’s arms. “He’s on his way home; see how loose he is. Usually he would be extremely stiff. This is what Minor Improvements has done for him.”

The patients are fans, too.

Lori Szczepaniak’s daughter Lauren, 8, a third-grader at Stevens Elementary in Burnt Hills, is a cheerleader for Pop Warner football. To stay as active as she is, Lauren sees Dake once a week. “She’s been a patient since she was 9 months old. It used to be three times a week,” her mom said. Lauren is a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair most of the time. At 10 days old, her first visit to the pediatrician revealed a tumor that was compressing her spinal cord.

After using the weight-supported treadmill and doing aqua therapy in the pool that Dake designed, Lauren can now walk with leg braces and a back brace, though “it’s hard and slow,” her mom said.

Minor Improvements has helped Lauren “find her way of independence. It’s her freedom. She can do anything when she goes there. She’s very powerful when she goes there,” Szczepaniak said.

It’s not just physical therapy. It’s personal. “Karen is a very close friend to my daughter Lauren. Karen has a good way of challenging her … She absolutely loves it. She also has a friend to talk to.”

Dake is “a very big blessing to everyone she touches, Szczepaniak said. “Karen goes out of her way for her patients,” from accompanying the family to Boston Children’s Hospital to joining them on a road trip to the Abilities Expo in New Jersey.

“It is so emotional for me,” Szczepaniak said. “Being a mother of this little girl, it is a little bit overwhelming. Karen is there for me, too. It gets tough sometimes. Karen is more than a therapist, so much more. She’s fabulous.”

Lauren, Chris and other patients have followed Dake from the outpatient pediatric clinic at Wesley Health Center, where she was a therapist for five years, to the strip mall in Greenfield, where Dake worked for a year until the new building she designed was completed. Her practice is the first in the Capital District devoted exclusively to pediatric physical therapy.

Photos of her patients line the wall, along with colorful tiles the children created at the annual open house — tiles Dake fired herself in her own kiln.

“We just celebrated our fifth birthday, and the new patient we took in was number 572. We’re doing over 100 new patients a year. Some of the children have been coming for the whole five years we’ve been here; some kids come and get their injury rehabilitated, and then they hurt themselves again,” Dake said. “Skiing injuries are a big surge over the Christmas break.”

Five physical therapists are on staff. About half of the patients are under 5 years old.

Two cozy rooms are designed just for babies, with two-way mirrors so parents can watch and stay involved. A larger room has exercise bikes, a rowing machine, even an educational skeleton named Scully.

The same treadmill Christopher Reeves used after his spinal cord injury was the first piece of equipment she bought while working out of the strip mall in Greenfield. The kids like the adaptive bikes and rowing machine, too. And their siblings are jealous about the 94-degree pool, Dake said.

“We tried to create an environment that’s really positive,” Dake said. “Whether you have a newborn and it’s your first child and they need therapy because their neck tilts, or your child had a very traumatic birth experience and now has a lifelong disability, parents want to be encouraged by where they’re going. They want to walk into a place that’s got a positive environment that says ‘we made this for kids, and you can feel good when you’re here.’ Families just overwhelmingly respond to that positive energy.”

Patients move on to adult therapy when they turn 21. That will be an emotional event when a patient reaches that threshold.

“We are encountering right now our first 21-year-old that we need to discharge, and it’s breaking my heart because I’ve known him since he was 7,” she said.

Some patients never reach that milestone. Five have been so damaged they died, including Dake’s very first patient at Minor Improvements: Gabby. The girl’s photo hangs in the waiting room. Mention her name, and Dake’s eyes fill with tears.

“Gabrielle is my No. 1 patient of all time … I met her when she was 2½. She had a brain tumor and had that removed. She was very wobbly and very shaky. She got a little bit better, and then the brain tumor came back. The first time they did chemotherapy, and then they did radiation therapy. The third time the tumor came back, they didn’t do anything. She was 9½ when she passed away almost two years ago, and her family is still in my life,” Dake said.

“For the course of seven years of ups and downs with that little girl, we saw all the different opportunities she had to still get better,” Dake said. “Any child who is that sick and goes through chemotherapy and radiation or surgery and has a very serious illness like that, if they can remain active, they keep their muscle strength, their endurance, their cardio-pulmonary strength, they’re less prone to infection and they have a generally healthier existence. I knew that Gabby wouldn’t become an adult.”

But Dake never gives up on her patients.

“Another little boy that I worked with was in the end stages of his cancer. He became very, very weakened and didn’t really have much therapy anymore. His father would come and we would see them in the pool, and in that buoyant environment, he could still move his hands a little bit, and dad could hold him without feeling like he was crushing him,” Dake recalled. “His oxygen saturation levels and his alertness were improved for the rest of the day. So his health on a daily basis improved.

“These kids are always with me,” Dake said. “I enjoy working with kids with a very severe disability. It’s a blessing to be on the journey with these families. They bring you into their child’s life for such a short period, it’s a precious thing. I’m always very grateful.”

The former Karen Marcellus was born in Schenectady, moved to Saratoga Springs when she was in elementary school and graduated from St. Peter’s High School, now Saratoga Central Catholic. She’s been married for 26 years to Gary Dake, who has since become president of Stewart’s Shops Corp.

Tamaryn Bennett, 8, of Saratoga Springs, was hard at work on the rower during a recent visit. “I have a great time,” he said between strokes. It was his final visit to the clinic, after coming twice a week to strengthen his leg muscles.

“He’s growing so fast; he’s been off the charts since he was born,” said his mom, Valerie Bennett.

Photos of Gabby and kids of all ages are displayed at Minor Improvements — Lauren, too.

“She is my little cheerleading girl. She’s awesome. She’s really, really special to me,” Dake said. “She’s also one of my retirement kids. There’s Lauren and Christopher and a couple other kids. I tell them they’re my retirement kids, because when they’re 21 and they can’t come here anymore, that’s when I’m retiring. They really do become a part of my heart.”

Her husband Gary’s support has been “phenomenal,” Dake said. “At this point, I’m working more hours than he is. I’m here from about 6:15 a.m., and I try to get home by 8 every night. That’s the joy of owning the business. And he’s home waiting for me. He usually greets me at the door with a glass of wine, and he’s already made the salad.”