Week 5 entry 1

Today i was asked to assist the physio with getting patient F into sitting and then seeing how she copes with the tilt table. Patient F had a stroke affecting the middle cerebral artery territory. Patient F has right side hemiplegia, expressive and receptive dysphagia and increase tone on the right side resulting in an flexion contracture. I began with getting my patient into sitting on the edge of the bed. This required the assistance of two people as we rolled her to one side and then pushed up through side lying to sitting. Patient F had difficulty in sitting as she had poor trunk control and tended to fall to the right. Based upon her sitting posture and stability we decided that it would be a better idea to use a tilt table to get the patient into the standing position. To transfer her from the regency chair to the tilt table we used 3 assist and a slide sheet. We then strapped her down, ensuring that the straps were not too tight. She managed to tilt up to about 60 degrees before she became a bit uncomfortable and distressed. We stood with her for a few miutes before lowering her back down and doing passive stretches of her Right shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers and her right hip, knee and ankle. I found this hard to perform against the strong contracture however i felt like i was still stretching.