Last day at Riverside

I truely feel I have grown as a person while working at Riverside. Not only was it difficult to balance school and my 2 other jobs, I had to complete my hours at Riverside. It was tough at times but worth every second. My confidence has greatly increased as well as my verbal skills. I think working alongside complete strangers when I first started at Riverside, it was hard to vocalize my opinions or thoughts, but as time progressed, I became more confortable and spoke up about my thoughts. It was also very interesting to see ALL the different diagnoses inside a hospital and get to learn about them. Many days I would write something home and look it up on the web, just to see how it worked and understand the symptoms the pt was displaying. Documenting to me seems okay! I think I;m going to be okay, but I think I write TOO much. I need to definately learn the abbreviations for certain things and know what all SHOULD be in a note. Melinda really helped me with the computerized documentation and some written. I completed my last 8 hour day there yesterday. It was sad to leave but now on to the next adventure!

Wrapping things up

Well ladies, we are almost done..Hopefully we have all learned a lot from our fieldwork and out CI’s. This week at Riverside Melinda let me take charge! It was fun. I started my day off my looking all the patients up in the charts and computer system to get all their info, then we decided out schedule for the day. We determined who needed to be seen as a co-treat with PT and who was a 1:1, as they call it; only needed OT. We had almost 20 patients on our worklist, so we have to prioritize who was to be seen and who could be seen either in the pm, or the next day. We had a very nice lady who suffered from a CVA and had fallen. The doctors did not know whether the stroke caused the fall or if the fall caused the stroke. So we were trying to determine a baseline for the woman and how she was living prior to the fall. It was very diffcult, she was very confused, agitated, and fatigued. We walked her into her bathroom and then down the hall. During out treatment, she continued to ramble that she was lost, cold and wanted to go home. It was very heart breaking, we tried to comfort her but there was nothing we could do or say that would ease her mind.

Shy-drager symdrome.

This week I was also on Cardiac Rehab with Melinda. She let me look up the patients info on a website called ORB and then plan our day. I had to look up the patient’s PMH and what brought them into the hospital. After that I had to look at their eval by the OT and the notes written by the SW to decide where the pt was being discharged to. One of the patients that we looked up and were assigned to was diagnosed with Shy-drager syndrome. Both Melinda and myself had never heard of this syndrome so we had to do some research before seeing the pt. It is very similar to Parkinson’s disease but a little more severe. According to MAYCLINIC.COM ”It is a neurological disease that affects your CNS. It causes a drop in blood pressure when standing up, bladder dysfunction and other Parkinson’s-like symptoms, such as slowness of movement, muscle rigidity and poor balance. Shy-Drager syndrome develops in adulthood, beginning at an average age of 50 years, and is gradually progressive and usually fatal. A rare condition, Shy-Drager syndrome occurs about two to three times more frequently in men.” The patient was 58 y/o and had a wife and 3 children. He was homebound with care given by his wife and kids. He was receiveing both OT and PT because of the rigit tightness in his muscles of him limbs and a very unsteady gait with occusional LOB. The pt was very positive about the TX however, there’s no cure for Shy-Drager syndrome.

Inpatient rehab again

I got to spend another week in Inpatient Rehab. It was great! A new addition was added to the department….a DOG! Her name is Oceana..or Ocie! She is a 2 year old black lab that came from Canine Companions. She was trained with one of the therapists and now a staff member on the Inpatient floor. It was great to see the patients interact with her. Especially the patients with dogs waiting for them at home. We let a patient suffering from a CVA walk Ocie outside and play fetch. both OT and PT were a part of the treatment, the PT working on balance and her gait, while OT worked on cognitive skills. It was very rewarding for the patient.

Inpatient Rehab

I finally got to go onto the inpatient rehab floor for a few days and I LOVED it!! It truely was SOOO much fun. I can definately see myself working in a setting like inpatient rehab. There are 15 beds in the unit and all disaplines see the pts 3 times a day for 30 minutes. So the patients gets a schedule in the morning delivered by the nurse that has their daily therapy with PT, OT, and ST, broke into different time slots. The pateints I got to observe were a TBI, Convergence Disorder and a CVA. It was fun. We brought the CVA patient down into their therapy gym and had her sort pills into a weekly pill holder according to their dosage and frequency. It was a difficult task to her b/c of her weakness and incoordination with small object. But also difficult because it took a lot of memory and cognition to figure out what bottle she was on and how many pills/how many times per day. It was great to see how our human brain trys to figure things out and see it display on the patients face. The next day we took 3 patients on a community outing to a local Target Department Store. Each pt had goals set by the therapist and also Riverside Hospital supplies each pt with 5 dollars to spend. For some the goals and task of spending 5 dollars was easy, but to one patient it was difficult. He was the TBI pt that had a hard time concentrating on the store and getting side tracked by the stimulating environment. He also had a tough time realizing the worth of only 5 dollars and that it cannot buy something that is worth 20 dollars. With a few verbal cues and a shorter goal list, the TBI pt was able to complete his tasks.

It was really a great learning experience and I hope to be invited to their floor again before my clinical ends.

New Way of Documenting

I am progressing very well at Riverside. I am learning alot of new things and being more hands on with the patients. Melinda is having me do a lot of different reaching and grasping exercises with sroke patients, while she sits beside and coaches. This week I also learned more about doecumenting, first writing them out on pre-printed forms that the hospital used to use and then on their computerized program. I definately liked the computer  program much better. It was much quicker and simpler. Also it seemed like less errors could occur that way. We have also been co-treating alot this week with phusical therapy. Its nce because they help mobilize the pt and gait train them so that we can walk them into the bathroom and doing simple grooming skills with them once inside the bathroom and then physical therapy can help walk the pt BTB. It has been a great time thus far…

Initial Note

I completely forgot to document my note!!

Day One: I arrived at the hospital and met Melinda H. in the rehab department located on the second floor. I arrived at 8:10a and we left the department around 8:30a to the 7th tower (Cardiac Rehab Unit). I will be follong Melinda on tuesdays and wednesdays 8:30-4 until the end of Spring Quarter.

My time spent at Riverside Hospital

I have been assigned my clinical site at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. First of all If I may start off by saying..IT IS HUGE!!! I have gotten lost about 10 times so far. It is very similar to the hospital I work at but MUCH bigger.

The OTA that I am working alongside is Melinda H. She has been for OhioHealth for many years and is a great instructor.Her day starts at 7:30a and I arrive at 8:30a. She gets all of her patient infomation together when she gets there and I have requested to come in early a few times so I can observe this process.

The floor that she is mostly assigned to is the Cardia Rehab floor, the patients are there because of CHF, strokes, COPD and various other diagnosis. It is a little boring right now because the patients are pretty independent and do mostly everything for themselves. However, on one wing of the floor are mostly stroke patients and I have learned a great deal from them. One patient suffered from a fall and presented stroke like symptoms when admitted to RMH. She had trouble with word finding and mental functions. She was physically in good condition with slight balance issues but mentally off. She would be a great pateint to take into a kitchen or laundry room and perform simple ADL’s because of her limited mental functions.

I think next week I will be in their inpatient rehab unit and CANNOT wait. I think I’m really going to like it because of all the “detailed” things you can achieve with the patients.

So all and all, I’m having a good experience and feel comfortable with the site!

Terrin Greene