Thursday, November 6, 2008

Interesting Patients

Two new patients were admitted today, and wow are they both unique! The patient I evaluated has a touch of dementia, and is a bit of a drama queen, so whenever we start to move her, she screams out at the top of her lungs. When informed that yelling is not appropriate behavior and she has to stop or she will disturb the other patients, she replies "I'm so sorry, I won't do it again." Just to scream again as soon as we start to try to get her to move again. She also changes the subject when she doesn't want to participate or wants to stall by saying "you sure are pretty" or "I really do like your top, that is very pretty." Very funny!

The other patient is going to be a tough one. She is very much used to having things her own way, and believes that she can dictate how her therapy is going to be performed. She believes that she will get out of the 3 hours a day, that is required by law and insurance to perform. She also doesn't realize that the entire point to therapy is to perform all of the activities herself. At the end of the day, when the OT was completing her last time with her, she helped the patient to her room. The patient demanded the OT to take her shoes off, the OT said that she needed to do this herself, as this is why she is in therapy. The patient said that she would just get in bed with her shoes on, and the OT told her that it was her choice, so the patient threw herself in bed, took off her shoe, and threw it at the OT! Needless to say, the OT was not a happy camper, but at least she wasn't hit by the shoe.

Looks like we are in for an interesting week next week.

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