May 19^th, 2009

 

Daily Activities:

            Meeting Diane at 12:00 today I began my day with a patient that I had never met before. He came in complaining about neck pains near the skull and stretching to the Trap muscle in the upper and lower back. He said that he was cleaning his shower when he started to feel the pain in his shoulder. Referring to the anatomy book Diane showed Stephanie and me what was causing the pain. In the shoulder between the two bones where the joint is, there is a bursa that is in between. Every time the patient lifts his shoulder he has pain, this is from the bursa, basically being pinched by the bones and the muscle as he moves his shoulder up. To help this, Diane gave the patient a quick massage, and stretched the area. Diane noticed that there was a lot of swelling and inflammation near the bursa area. To help that Diane put the patient on stimulation to bring down the swelling.

            After our patient left, Diane gave Steph and me a new joint to look over. This week we were given the elbow joint, and tomorrow we have our research day, so I plan on working on the joint in the library again. The rest of the week will also be dedicated to the presentation and final product for my senior project.