Monday, July 14, 2008
first week in stroke association (abroad, rural)
It was my first week in a rural (abroad) stroke association. I was surprised with the way stroke patients being treated here. The way the association works is, 2x exercise classes in the morning for the stroke patients (duration:2 hrs per class) and individual sessions in the afternoon (45 minutes each). For the exercise classes, its divided to intermediate group (patients who are able to walk and are further down the track) and early group (patients who are still in early stage and wheelchair bound). For the intermediate group, exercises include weight training with theraband, and mat exercises (yoga, pilates) and for the early group exercises include active assisted ROM exercises, functional training (STS) and weight transfers. I was really shocked with the way they work here, first of all, patients who are in the intermediate group are walking with poor gait pattern and most of them are unable to WB on their affected UL. Also, their affected side are mainly grade 2. To even think of giving them resistance work to be done on the affected side is already not right. I was thinking in my head that there are alot of things that can be done with this group of patients like gait retraining and retraining of UL function but it is impossible to get it done as it is a group exercise class and there are ~12 people in the class. I questioned the facility supervisor and she said this is how they have been running the centre. In the end, i had to carry on what they have always done and just think of it as running a normal exercise class. I have also learnt to think of it as an association (where patients come to socialise) and not an outpatient clinic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment