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Another month in hospital for Coretta Scott King
By ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/26/05
Coretta Scott King has been able to put weight on her right leg and is able to communicate with her four children -- telling them "I love you," her doctor said today.
King's personal physician, Maggie Mermin, said the wife of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is making significant improvements from a stroke she suffered two weeks ago, but she will still spend at least a month at Piedmont Hospital going through rehabilitation.
I am expecting more improvement. She doesn't have to be back to normal in order for us to release her. We send people home for home physical therapy all the time," Mermin said Friday at a noon press conference at the hospital. "But because she needs such intense therapy, we thought we would just keep her here and do it here."
Mermin said King has been transferred to a rehabilitation bed and is taking three hours of physical, speech and occupational therapy a day.
King suffered a major stroke and mild heart attack on Aug. 16. The stroke left her unable to speak and severely weak on her right side.
But since the stroke, Mermin said King has made progress, including being able to sing and speak a few words.
"She has said two or three short sentences," Mermin said. "When she sees here children, she says 'I love you.' At first she was only repeating things that the speech therapist said to her, or [the speech therapist] would start a song and [King] would start to sing it. Now she is coming up with what she wants to say, which is new. Every day, there is a little progress."
King's right arm is still very weak, but Mermin said she has been able to transfer weight to her right leg when she is being moved.
"She is learning to use her left hand and relearning to use her right hand," Mermin said. "Her personality is the same. Her intellect is the same and her smile is the same. The right side of her face is moving a little more, so she is looking like herself."
Mermin said that King has been a model patient, although she refused to use a feeding tube, which was recommended by the speech therapist.
"She was really clear about that, she did not want it," Mermin said. "We said okay, but you have to get enough calories."
King is strong enough to feed herself with her left hand, said Mermin.
Hilda Tompkins, a friend of the King family, said all of King's children have been touched by the many "expressions of concern and care during Mrs. King's illness."
Tompkins said two funds have been set up for people eager to make donations to King:
• The Coretta Scott King Scholarship Fund at Antioch College
795 Livermore St., Yellow Springs, Ohio, 45387
• The Coretta Scott King Health & Wellness Fund
Citizens Trust Bank, P.O. Box 4809, Atlanta, Ga. 30302
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