I had a very interesting patient this last week. He was injured two years ago during his attempted murder. He was shot in the abdomen. This resulted in a severely perforated bowel and a fracture to L3. There was no neurological damage and the patient seems to physically functioning well, but there seem to be many psychological issue involved.
When the patient first arrived he did not react well to the fact that I was a student and was very unhappy about being in a cubicle alone with me. Luckily my Curtin clinical tutor was with me and this put the patient at ease. I continued with the subjective assessment and found it very difficult to get any information out of the patient. the patient seemed very vague and would not make eye contact with me. I finally made it through the subjective and on to the objective. The patient was very unhappy about me seeing him without his top on and didn't want me to touch him. I decided the best treatment for him was to learn to activate his TA and pelvic floor. Through out the teaching process the patient covered his eyes and made painful faces, but said everything was fine.
If I was not a student I think I would have chosen to get a male physiotherapist to treat this patient. Unfortunately he has now been allocated to me. Does anyone have some ideas to help in his future treatment?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
That sounds like a difficult situation! I can see how you would feel slightly uncomfortable treating the patient. I suppose the dest thing would be to have a male treating him but if it's not possible then maybe it will take time. It sounds like there may be an element of a trust issue and it will take time to build up raport and gain his trust.
Mabe you could spend some time just talking to the patient and trying to get to the base of where his axiety comes from. Obviously we are not psychs but if you talk about things he is interested in, he might respect you a bit more and allow you to treat him more effectively. I guess you would have to discuss this with your supervisor first though. Just an idea :)
Post a Comment