A while ago, a patient came into the facility and we were given two weeks to make the patient stronger and safer to go home. The two weeks was what the patient's insurance company authorized. Research shows that a person will need to increase caloric intake and lift heavier weights with shorter repetitions to increase strength. The person should ...

A therapist's gym is a multipurpose room not only for the staff but also patients. For the staff, it's used for in-services, luncheons and meetings. For the patients we see, the gym is used for exercises to get stronger, a place to encourage and become encouraged by others, and a safe place to express frustrations. Often when I'm with patients ...

As new nursing staff members begin to work, I will often introduce myself to them and explain that certain patients would need pain medication prior to therapy. One nurse I spoke with told me he had assessed pain on several people and they did not want to have anything for pain. The brief conversation went something like this. ''Can we get these ...

Let me vent about this whole system of seeing patients for a designated time in relation to reimbursements in a SNF setting. It does not work. If a patient comes in and is set at 720 minutes but we only see him for 700 minutes in the assessment reference date period, we get reimbursed at the lower rate of 500 minutes. We do not get reimbursed ...

Working in a skilled nursing setting definitely has its benefits and drawbacks, as I am constantly discovering. There is a huge advantage to working with the same patient every day of the week. Watching him make gains and meet goals, sometimes daily, is extremely rewarding. On the other end of the spectrum, working with many who have end-stage ...

I was treating a patient and we were alternating between LE and UE exercises. So we rested the legs and worked the arms. I instructed the patient to do ''21''s (a fallback to my body-building days) and we really blasted those biceps. Then I was thinking about the poor OTs who had to treat this guy after I am done with him. The guy's arms looked ...

As a relatively new physical therapist assistant, I accept that I have a monumental amount of knowledge to learn. Trust me; I'm humbled every day by the vast amount of experience I'm gaining and the gap in what I have yet to master. This week alone, I've been lucky enough to work with a young man with TBI and two aphasic massive stroke ...

As I recently blogged, I've been clinical instructor to a first-rotation PTA student. I share the duty with my colleague, who happened to graduate with me from the same PTA program our student is now attending. To say she is in sympathetic company is a humorous understatement. It was only a short two years ago that we were stressing over clinical ...

Often I find that I'll have a ''favorite'' patient on my schedule and will seek out that person's name on my list every morning as I begin my day. It can be something about their hard-working ethic -- knowing they'll always give me their best in therapy, or even their keen sense of humor that wins over my affection. I always assumed therapists ...

The police, fire department, EMTs and MDs are a few of the professionals that seem to be on duty all the time. In therapy, we are not and in most cases we do not make truly independent decisions. This might be due to the training and thought processing that has been taught. We consult with the nurse or other health professional before seeing ...