General Reflections

Rehab was where I spent the last few days of my work shadowing journey and I could say I leant a lot of things there. 

We were taught how to take the blood pressure and SPO2 of the elderly. This was something I never knew how to do before. Although I watched my grandma take her own blood pressure being able to do it myself was a whole different experience. I had to be careful especially if the elderly goes for dialysis, this would mean that you couldn't use the arm that is used for dialysis to take blood pressure. You also had to take note of the range of acceptable blood pressures, which was between 100-150 for diastole. There were several times where the elderly's blood pressure went above the accceptable range but it went down later after resting. I remember there was one elderly man who's blood pressure went up to 204 and it didn't go down. Later, the staff took over and perhaps calmed him down with some calming exercises. Normally, if the elderly's blood pressure is above that of the acceptable range I would be ask to retake it a second time. We will never take it a third time because one of the staff said that the more you take their blood pressure the more anxious the elderly will get and the higher it will go. So she would write down their blood pressures using a marker on a card and hand it to the therapist who will take it from there.

While I was rehab, I met many different elderly but the majority was cooperative. I thought that all the elderly were like that until I met this lady on the second last day. She was uncooperative and refused to do the exercises on the machines she kept screaming saying that she was tired and that she wanted to go back to the day care. The therapist had to tell her that the door was 'closed' (because you needed a card to get out) and tell her that when the time was up the door would open and that she can leave. But she didn't really listen and continued to scream. After switching her to one of the easier machines, she calmed down. This was really eye-opening because all the elderly I have met while I was St Hilda's was mostly calm and cooperative. 

I also had the experience to watch the physiotherapy (PT ) help an elderly man to improve his balance. The man was leaning to one side because he was putting pressure on his left leg more resulting in him walking in an abnormal way. The PT tried to help the man by giving him some exercises to do and try to instruct him into trying to place his weight in a different manner such that the man wasn't putting so much weight on one of his legs. I felt that this experience was really enriching because I got to see the professionals work so close up. While I do attend physiotherapy sessions myself, I never had the experience to watch them do their work so close up. From rehab I also learnt that there are PTs and Occupational Therapist (OTs). In hospitals, these 2 professions have a clear line of seperation but in the community sector as one of the therapist told us, there isn't really a clear line to it. The main reason for this is because if there was a clear line of separation between the 2 the elderly would have to constantly see different therapist for their case and this might cause the elderly to become confused. So it's better for the PTs and OTs to work closer in the community setting than in the hospital setting. 

The experience at rehab was really fun because I got to learn many different things while interacting with different elderlys.