week 2 post 2

I saw the patient who had MS again today. I did some research on MS so that I had a better understanding of her condition and didn't realise that there were different types of the disease! I am not sure which type she has though and couldn't find any indication of this in her notes. I also found out that she suffers from depression. I looked through and did some research on some of the medications she was on for her depression and also for her MS which I found interesting and will keep in mind when seeing her. I noticed that she had a lot of swelling around her ankles (and constantly does) but despite this I learnt it was still important to encourage her to do some walking (with a pulpit frame). She is also wheelchair bound and has been for nearly 11 years which means getting some weight bearing through her LL's if even for 20 mins a day is very important. Today I went with my supervisor to take her for walk with her pulpit frame. I learnt a lot about safety! One of us needed to stand behind her holding either side of the back of the frame, supporting her lower back and pushing the frame forward to aid her walking as she didnt have enough strength to push it using her body weight/legs. The other needed to follow with the wheelchair closely behind and be ready to put the breaks on in case her legs gave way and she collapsed backwards. I also learnt that sometimes it's necessary to push or encourage a patient to keep going even when they want to give up (to a certain extent) and in this patients case verbal encouragement was very effective to motivate her to continue walking and helped her confidence. My supervisor however did most of the encouraging so I think I need to speak up and sound more sure of myself so that I can earn her trust. However I did give lots of positive feedback after the walk which seemed to go down well.
I really enjoyed today. I think I am getting a little better with communicating with patients but still need to build up some confidence when doing anything hands on.