Long Term Patient

Recently I was on a neuro based placement and was asked to continue the care of a patient who was recently admitted to hospital. From reading the notes I realised that the patient had been previously independent in all areas of life and still drove her car. She also seemed to be part of quite a wealthy family. On assessing the patient it became very obvious that she was going to be a 'handful' over the coming month. Although she realised she was no longer independent, she believed she would get better on her own. To add to the situation, this lady lost focus very easily and loved to talk bout anything at all, no matter what relevance it had.

Obviously I did my best to explain the necessity of physio as well as other medical help but this lady still felt she only required rest to get better. Over the month I was treating her we had some very interesting times and I found to get the best outcomes I had to become more of a friend then a physio and barter with her to complete her physio sessions. I often found myself giving her choices and rewarding her if she chose the harder option. It ended up being quite an interesting challenge to gain her compliance twice a day but it was something that i found myself looking forward to.

I approached it almost as a competition and I believe it allowed me to perform some effective form of treatment each day rather then very little if i had let her get her own way. After a few days it became very easy for me to tell whether she was just bluffing to get out of physio or whether she was in fact, not up for it at the time. I don't believe I would have been able to sense this if i had just taken a standard approach to the patient.

This approach would obviously not work for everyone but if I had a similar type of patient in a similar sort of setting again I would use the same techniques.