back in business

so i have taken a break from blogging and i will try to get back in full swing. i have been back at my phys dys site since the beginning of feb and apart from working i have been studying like mad for my board exam which i took feb 19 and i am still awaiting results.

work is swell. i have gotten right back into the motions. it is nice to be back with the same people. today i did my first real evaluation and i think it went quite well. i am getting more comfortable with all this OT business now- so that is nice. i have had a slew of interesting patients, who present mostly deconditioned and weak from a long hospital course.

my job is to get them strong and ready to go home. we will work on the daily activities such as bathing, dressing, functional mobility and toileting as well as higher level tasks such as cooking, cleaning and the sort.

i have been able to adopt a client-centered focus by really working on what the patient deems as most important. a man with healing from a stroke cannot volitionally move his left arm. i wanted to show him some adaptive equipment or compensatory strategies he could use to make a snack or a drink during the day if no one was around to help him. he was not interested. to him, the most important thing at hand was to get his arm working. i, as a new therapist, did not feel comfortable performing neuromuscular treatment on this gentleman. i wanted more practice under the direction of a more experienced OT first, so we just worked on upper body dressing. it was very difficult for him to get a full sleeve sweatshirt on, whereas he can independently dress with a short sleeve top. it was hard work. and it taught me a lot about teaching compensatory dressing techniques.

over the course of the last month i am reminded at how much more i need to know. i like my job so much. one thing that is so great about it is the continual learning opportunities. i got excited when i found out that there was an educational lunch seminar about alzheimers. i will definitely attend that. i love constant learning.

that is it for now... i think once i am over the anxiety of passing my boards i will be writing with more ease and excitement.