Week of May 1-5, 2009

Daily Activities

Monday 8:30-11:30:

Today was my first day of senior project. I arrived at the Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy around 8:30 AM anxious for the day to begin. The moment we walked in through the door Diane Fowler was already accompanied by our first patient of the day. He was a former Tugboat Captain and was currently working in the construction industry but recently decided he wanted to return to the maritime business. We assessed him in different areas like balance, strength, and his physical capability through various tests in order to complete a series of basic but important evaluations. Our next patient did not arrive for another 20 to 30 minutes and in this time we received a tour of the office and also spoke about different assignments Diane would be giving us throughout the week. We saw about four other patients today and my favorite of the day was an 81-year-old man named Mr. Brewster. He had undergone a numerous amount of surgeries and was amazingly still very active for his age. He told us about how he had to have an operation on his right rotator cuff after playing through the pain for many of his years as a baseball pitcher. Mr. Brewster was happy to share many details with us about his many surgeries and injuries. The actual reason for his visit this morning was due to pain in his right hip that would bother him through his daily activities including golfing. So as a part of his treatment he had to stretch his hamstrings. Diane explained to us that the tightness in the posterior muscles would quite often pull on the coxal bone, more commonly known as the hip causing pain. Once we understood this Diane let us each help assist her and stretch Mr. Brewster. Although both Hunter and I were very nervous it was exciting to get involved and actually help Mr. Brewster with his treatment. As well as working in the office we will also be doing research on different parts of the body and our first assignment if the knee joint. I’m looking forward to working with both Hunter and Diane again tomorrow!