A “Stand Up” Patient
This has been an awesome week. I have had the opportunity to treat and evaluate a lot of patients. I was so proud today when I got the opportunity to discharge one of the patients I have followed since the beginning of my internship. It made me feel so proud to see that in a matter of weeks I could significantly improve someone's impairments.
On the flip side, today I had a patient "stand me up." The last time I saw the patient he said that he was feeling better than before and wanted to stop therapy even though he still had some pain. Now this was someone who after 2 weeks had maybe done 1 day of his home exercise program that consisted of about 3 exercises... Needless to say I didn't feel that this patient was appropriate to discharge and continue therapy on his own. After expressing this, I assumed that the patient would choose to continue therapy as most others do when you make a recommendation...but of course he didn't show up.
Part of me wants to be stubborn and say FINE if you don't want to help yourself then how can I help you, but the other part of me just wants what is BEST for his physical needs and somehow spend all of my time trying to get him to comply. I tried a stern, but caring approach...obviously it did not work with him. It's like a rollercoaster ride! :D