Following an early and promising political career, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is stricken with polio in 1921 at 39 years of age. This film follows his struggle with his paralysis, the refuge he took in an obscure and run-down Georgia health spa, and the family pressure to return to public life and politics. Perhaps the most significant battle he fought with the stigma of paralysis was not in the eyes of others but in his own mind.

In spite of his political savvy, Mr. Roosevelt is not ready to accept what has befallen him. With the reluctant aid of Eleanor, he answers an invitation to go to rural Georgia, to Warm Springs, where the owner has written him, some progress has been seen on people with suffering polio. Warm Springs is more backward than what the Roosevelts expected. Franklin is determined to make a go of it. Helped by Tom Loyless, the man in charge of the springs, Mr. Roosevelt begins to see some progress. At the same time, he and other polio sufferers, are the target of some disdain and bigotry by people that have used Warm Springs for other afflictions. The arrival of a physical therapist, Helena Mahoney, works wonders for Franklin and the patients staying in the spa. Mr. Roosevelt ends up buying the place and turns it into a treatment center for people with polio. Today the spa still exists as the Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation.

About the speaker: Dr. Fisher has an M.S. in Physical Therapy and a Ph.D. in Biokinesiology, both from the University of Southern California. During her career as a clinician and rehabilitation specialist, it became clear to Dr. Fisher that her greatest ambition was to develop therapeutic interventions that would maximize neural and behavioral recovery in individuals suffering from pathological conditions affecting the nervous system. As a clinician, she became aware of the tremendous potential her patients had to recover from catastrophic illness and injury, and upon completion of her doctoral research at the University of Southern California, she has continued to focus her research in this subject.

The USC Phillips-Fisher Center is a vision she has longed to fulfill, bringing together world-class researchers and physical therapists for collaborative clinical trials. Through a generous donation from her husband, Roger Phillips, Dr. Fisher has been able to develop the Center and lay the foundation for the future of research in brain repair and rehabilitation.