Leonie Dean had been carrying a bag of cat litter from the supermarket when she suddenly collapsed.

Unbeknownst to her, those would be the last steps she would take.

Years earlier, the budding spray-painter from the Adelaide Hills had lost function in her dominant right hand.

Ms Dean, who has been paraplegic because of a neurological condition for more than nine years, no longer plays the saxophone she loves, and her passion for driving manual cars now looks very different.

"You get thrown in without instruction and it's like you've got to learn how to swim now," she tells AAP.

But with a team of support workers and her occupational therapist behind her, Ms Dean is learning how to "swim" again.

Health issues, injury or disability hamper the ability of two-in-five Australians to parti

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