I have found it very hard to deal with depressed patients. I haven't been around many depressed or suicidal patients and I'm finding it quite daunting. On a previous placement a patient came in with pneumonia. I was reading through her notes before I saw her and she had very extensive mental health history. She had recently been discharged from spending 7 months in a mental health hospital and has a history of self-mutilation.
Before I entered her room I had an idea of what I was walking into, but I was still weary. The patient came across very sad but she wasn't as "depressed" as I thought she would be. During the subjective assessment I found it very hard to get any information from her and she seemed very disinterested. She was very compliant with all aspects of the objective assessment. When I asked her to lift her shirt so I could auscultate I saw many small cuts all over her abdomen and her back. This came as quite a shock to me.
I continued with my treatment as planned and all went well. In these cases I find it's not the treatment that is difficult but the patient and their medical history that make things more complicated. I discussed this with my supervising Physiotherapist and she helped me deal with my own emotions and thoughts when it comes to dealing with difficult patients.
In future cases I have to keep reminding myself that every case is different and to approach each patient with an open mind. I need to only take the information from the patients notes that I need and don't let them cloud my judgements of the patient.
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2 comments:
I definitely agree with you, but I experienced the other end of the scale. I treated a patient with depression that I was initially lead to believe was quite compliant and ended up being very difficult. Hopefully a patients medical condition won't affect their compliance but i think having an open mind with no expectations may be the best way to approach depressed patients. Catchya :)
Hey, I think the most important part of doing an assessment and treatment of these sort of patients is to ensure that their "depressed" tag is not at the front of your mind but instead you try and treat them as a normal patient and keep their medical history in the back of your mind so its there to remmeber but your not concentrating on it!!!
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