I have one client that I have been training weekly for the last 4 months. She's in her 60s, and has used a wheelchair for many years, although she can walk very short distances.
Because of how many years she has been in a chair, when I started working with her, her feet were rotated laterally to the point that her knees didn't even bend when she took steps. But she wanted to walk in the worst way. She told me that someday she wanted to walk on the track...so that's what we did! Her husband walked behind her with her chair, and I stood in front of her with her hands on my shoulders. That first time we walked, she stopped 6x in one lap around the track (about every 60 feet). The next week it would be 4x. Other gym members have noticed her progress, and either cheer her on as we're creeping along on the track, or stop and tell her how great she's doing while she's on the recumbent bike.
After watching me with Superman, she expressed a desire to bench press. So I grabbed a body bar, and she bench presses that. Her form isn't fantastic, but she does have shoulder mobility issues. She also sits on a bench, and puts her feet up on a BOSU ball, and touches her toes, which helps stretch her tight hamstrings.
I like to think of ways to adapt things that she sees other people do so she can do them. Ball slams work many different muscles. The arms, shoulders...and the abs. Last week I got the idea to stand her in front of her chair, near something she could grab if she needed to, and do ball slams. She was scared, but she did it! She doesn't realize that it was about so much more than slamming a ball--it was about confidence, balance, and working her shoulders.
The other day she came in to work out on her own. She stopped to chat with me for a minute, and they both told me that what we do in the gym means so much to her. She said that her first time back in the gym, she didn't think there was much of anything she could do. Her husband said that after our first session, she was so happy that there was real stuff she could do, that she cried!