Hmmm, I remember when I was working in a government hospital and one of the
ladies I was seeing gave me a perfect description of her home... It was only
after speaking to her for over a period of time that I started spotting
inconsistencies in her descriptions. It transpired that the house she was
describing was one she had lived in 40 years ago and due to her confusion she
couldn't recall her current living circumstances. If I hadn't taken the time
to learn to know this lady and taken her to her house to evaluate her
performance within her home setting, I could potentially have discharged her
back into an unsafe environment.
Veronica
----- Original Message ----
From: Mary Alice Cafiero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: OTlist@OTnow.com
Sent: Friday, 17 August, 2007 12:04:15 AM
Subject: [OTlist] The old days
I remember from my days back doing home health (probably 8 years ago)
when the decision was made that OT could not be a stand alone service
initially with a patient. I am not sure of the current rules. It was
explained to me by one of the top gurus of Texas home health that OT
could not be a stand alone service because you could make case that
every single patient needs OT. I'm not sure what happened to those days.
I know that I don't now, nor have ever, thought of myself as an upper
extremity therapist. I mean other than the fact that you use your
arms to do things. One of my favorite OTs who does pediatric power
chair conferences often points out that PT is wonderful and she has
many friends that are PTs and means no offense BUT, so what if you
can walk if you can't do a bleeping thing when you get there!
I have a tons of examples from my own fourteen year career. I'll
share one now. I was doing home health in North Carolina and received
a "comprehensive" D/C summary from the rehab unit. I got to the
gentleman's two room 85 year old farm house and saw his tub transfer
bench and bedside commode sitting outside in pristine condition. As I
did my evaluation, I asked him about the equipment. He bragged on how
nice and pretty it was and said it was a shame he couldn't use it. He
said he just warmed up water in a pot on the stove to take a bath
since they didn't have a bathroom (or indoor plumbing....the water
came from the well 30 yards out in the back yard). Of course I
couldn't wait to hear about the bathroom. He told me that his
therapists (and obviously OT and PT are equally involved in this
story) asked how far his bathroom was from his bed. He told them he
reckoned it was about 30 feet. He then got his walker and showed me
how he walked from his bed, through the kitchen, out the backdoor and
to the outhouse.
Now I don't know for sure what I would have done if I had all the
correct information if I had been the treating therapist, but it
certainly shows the necessity of asking all the right questions. My
experience has been that OT is best equipped to problem solve with
patients and families.
There, a rambling post from me.
Mary Alice
On Aug 16, 2007, at 5:43 PM, Joe Wells wrote:
>
>
> Arley Johnson stated "....WE are the only profession that knows
> enough about
> each area to put it all together in a functional, real world context,
> identify the limitations and address that area for remediation. All
> within
> our practice guidelines!"
>
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