On my neuro placement, I was treating an elderly man who had presented to hospital after falling off a retaining wall in his backyard and hitting his head on a concrete slab. His family explained to me during my first treatment session that he was profoundly deaf due to years of suffering Meniere’s disease, and had had one ear surgically terminated (i.e. his inner ear was burnt out) to stop the crippling vertigo he’d suffered. As a result, communication was a bit difficult (he had trouble lip-reading and didn’t know any sign language) and most long explanations had to be written out on paper.
On my second treatment session however, the family wasn’t there to assist with my explanations, so I decided to sort out a few communication cues with him first. When we were in the gym, I asked him to copy my movements as if he were looking in the mirror and if he needed at rest to put up his hand so I knew he needed to sit down. After a few awkward trials at this, and lots of laughter in doing so, our communication worked well. Ultimately he didn’t need a lot of rehab as he had only minor bruising to the side of his head, so I only saw him for two sessions.
I felt I did reasonably well with this patient as I didn’t have a lot of communication strategies to work with, and I did get my point across in the end. Anyone encountered anything like this before?
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