I recently was treating a patient with down syndrome on my musculo prac who lives in a home with a few other disabled people. He is relatively independent and they do not have any carers living in this 'share house'. Whilst he attends PT treatemnts every week, no gain is achieved as he has cognitive issues that doesnt allow recall of exercises. His learning disabilities inhibit him from reading instructions and his vision isnt the best either. I found it really hard to treat him as his response to everythuing was 'good' and i couldnt find a simple way to explain the exercises so that he could get it. he was in his thirties aswell so i was very aware not to patronise him. After two treatment sesions and recall of only one of the five exercises he really needed to be doing i decided i would trial something. I took (with his permission) photos of him doing the exercises and made a poster. I found this was helpful and although he still had difficulty with prescription of sets and reps, at least he could get himself into the positions. continuous repetition of the same exercises and showing how he did them in the phots already would have made this system even more efficient, though i had finished that prac and don't know how well it did pan out! a nice alternate to some of our more original HEP ideas!
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3 comments:
That's good idea using photos of this patient for his exercises ashy! It is always hard to do Rx with someone who has cognitive issues.
For some reason, many people with Down Syndrome love food! So this might be an idea somehow having a connection of the exercises to pics of food or something like that.
Rewarding system with their interests as well, if allowed (?).
Very original Ashy.
This type of exercise prescription would be good for every patient if we had time but we need to pick and choose carefully and i think you did really well with this patient.
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