May 12, 2009

 

Daily Activities:

            Today I met Diane at 2:00 to prepare for my first patient. Today Diane and I worked with a student who goes to Proctor Academy. About two months ago he was in a ski accident at the Dartmouth raceway, and broke his left leg near the ankle and the calf. He received surgery in his knee, for the placement of the rod and he had to more incisions on his lower left calf to enable access for the doctors to break the bone back in place. He has been going to Diane ever since he was given a walking cast. Today he was able to take it off and show Diane and I that he was now able to actually move his toes, for the first time since his accident. Diane said that the nerves in the foot were damaged during the accident and also during the surgery and today we worked on the progression of the movement of the toes. First we had our patient stretch out his leg and ankle with a towel, which would loosen up the ankle, which was extremely swollen and loosen up some of the fluid that was in the ankle and broken area. After that we put marbles on the floor and had the patient use his broken leg’s foot to try and pick up the marbles and drop them in the bag. This exercise would help increase mobility in the toes and the whole foot in itself. We then put the patient on stimulation to decrease to the swelling in the knee and the ankle.

            After that our next patient came in who was also a student at Proctor. He suffered from a snowboarding accident and tore his ACL. Diane gave this patient totally to me and it was my job to do the exercises with him. I started him off with his first step in what you would call a circuit. A circuit is basically an exercise or a variety of exercises that are done in a fast period of time, not letting the body rest. This type of technique would help the knee get stronger faster. I first had him do a wall sit for a minute, this would help strengthen his knee and the muscles around it for support, I then had him put a small medicine ball between his legs where his knees would touch. From there he would have to do squats holding the ball with his legs. After a minute of that I had him do lateral jumps over a box for minute. These exercises would help increase the strength in his knee and the supporting muscles. After his exercises I put him on stimulation and that was my first real patient.

            I really enjoyed today because I was able to have my first real patient and also was able to work with my classmates. I look forward to Thursday as I am coming in at that same time.