Introductions...

                               

This last Thursday we met with our patients on the FW 1 site for Geriatrics.  It was a very interesting time to say the least.  First we go in and review the clients chart to be more aware of the conditions our client is ailed with.  My client suffered a R CVA not quite 90 days ago; is suffering from left neglect, confusion at times & can follow 2-3 step instructions to give a little idea of what was going on with them.  I go in to start a 45 minute session figuring a 15 minute warm up to get to introduce myself & get to know her a bit better.  It went well & I feel good about that.  I tried to use my best professional skills of therapeutic use of self to be confident, engaging & get to know the resident better as opposed to what I read in the charts.  Definitely I need to work on timing & the activities we are doing.  I gave her the choice of 3 activities to do & she wanted to do 2 of the 3.  We worked on designing a plate with 4 different brightly colored feathers & than she wanted to play rummy as her next activity.  (Left neglect was very apparent when decorating the round plate.  She pushed the plate in my direction after it was only half filled on primarily the right side.)  I’ve included below here a Youtube video demonstrating L neglect to get a better idea of how this actually appears in a person.  Once we got to playing rummy it was apparent also that it was going to take quite some time to finish the game & I didn’t want to leave the game unfinished.  The client was sometimes confused & acknowledged that some correction was needed.  The example is she tried to add a 9 to her set of 6’s.  It was interesting to see her figure through it & finally ask “is that right?”  She said a 9 can’t go upside down & that wouldn’t work.  The image I had of her from reading the chart looked similar from what I saw.  (I did see this client previously so I admit to an advantage there.  It did fill my heart to see all the progress she had made since the last time I saw her in person against the new information in the chart.)The favorite part of the session was when I asked if it would be ok if I came back next Tuesday and she smiled and said “yes.”  To me it was a sign that a semblance of rapport was built & we could go from there.  Onto next week!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymKvS0XsM4w&feature=related