Week 1 #3 (19/10)

First week down, and pretty relieved. Was a fairly intense week, learnt heaps and was given a fair bit of autonomy. But found it really draining, both physically and emotionally.
Mainly involved with maintaining the residents ROM and strength in the muscles they have remaining. Manual handling and transfers is major component of our work at the Quad Centre, getting patients from their chairs to the plinth or onto the tilt table. Hoists are a necessity. Also chest physio is a major component because the residents are in their chair pretty much all day. So trying to maximise their lung function and prevent build of sputum, use a forceful technique called quad cough where you use your fists to push down on their stomach to force their diaphragm up. Ash learnt it this week and its my turn next week.
Think i went fairly well this week but heaps of room for improvement. Was shown up a few times by supervisor, mainly for not having answers to questions. So need to spend more time studying to brush up what we have learnt in previous semesters, annoying how quickly i forget stuff from last semester. I know its in their somewhere, just need to pull it out. Think my communication skills were my strongest asset this week. making it appropriate for the client, i.e. for an older person or for one of the younger people.
There is no social workers/councilers/psychologists at the Quad Centre so the residents tend to tell anyone who's willing to listen about how they are feeling or how they ended up in a chair. Get some pretty heavy stories and some pretty depressed patients and its hard to know what to say. Thats probably the hardest part to deal with it at this stage.
Anyway week two awaits. Good luck to all and hope its all going swimmingly.