9 November 2010

1:30-5:00pm   3.5 hours

Accumualted Hours: 40.5

  I performed my oral presentation at Marriotsridge High School in front of other mentorship students in clinical medicine and the MRHS mentor/intern teacher Mr. Eckert. Through this I also had the opportunity to observe fifteen other presentations from students in the same topic area. I found it interesting that many students are involved in pediatric medicine and would like to look into pediatric therapy myself. When I was in therapy myself the oldest I was at the end was sixteen. It might be interesting to treat specifically only children for physical/occupational therapy. I also heard from other students that their topic was based off of an idea rather than an actual experiment. I would like to create my forum however believe I will receive results that aren't as effective as possible due to the limited time I have to have the forum up and running since school and mentorship assignments end around May and even the end of April. Many people in their mentorship facilities seem to be participating in the actual profession whether it is actually helping out or just filing papers. As a volunteer at Physiotherapy I am not allowed to touch anything. It may be worthwhile for me too look into other facilities to find somewhere where I can get more involved rather than just observing the entire time.

  Therapy tools can be created out of many commonly used household items which creates an easy-to-do capability of home programs.  For example, Nicole’s first patient I observed today was discharged so Nicole told her of ways to continue improving at home on her own time. The patient had surgery on her finger and was and still is experiencing stiffness. To help stretch the finger Nicole cut the tips off of elastic cleaning/doctor gloves in order to create a sleeve that can be placed over the bent finger. This exercise can be supplied and performed by the patient without needing help from a therapist. At Physiotherapy the patient worked her finger by “playing” with the putty here. As a mother with children, the patient has play dough and clay around the house that she can use as a substitute for the putty here. Also, most of the exercises given to patents at therapy can be performed at home. Therapy requires more work than what is done in sessions in the clinic. Thus, patients are given diagrams of exercises along with a number of repetitions and specific directions in order to continue strengthening and improving everyday rather than just at therapy in the presence of a therapist.