3 January 2011
1:30-5:30pm 4hours
Accumulated hours 76
Today I observed Anne the entire time as she is the only CHT working on Mondays. Her first patient was a man who got a fracture in his pinky and needed surgery to place screws throughout the bone to straighten it back to its nature position. He had surgery 2 weeks ago and had stitches taken out 10days after surgery. Anne gave him stretching exercises by holding each joint in the finger and stretching the finger down. She also gave him a gel splint to help reduce swelling. I bet in the next couple visits they work on moving his wrist and both straightening and bending the pinky.
The next patient sliced both tendons and the nerve in her pinky finger and had surgery to have it put back together. She has been doing strengthening and stretching exercises as well as working on reducing scar tissue and swelling. Anne also gave her a gel splint for her finger for the scar tissue and to reduce swelling at night. She used putty for strengthening and recieved ultra sound for scar tissue build up which has made the finger stiff (as I felt by touch).
The final patient had an injury in his elbow playing football. As his last visit he went through his routine exercise program which includes stretching a strengthening. Because his elbow felt tight Anne used stem&ice along with stretching out his arm and massage to try to loosen it up.