This week I started interning at my on-site location, Center for Athletic Performance and Physical Therapy. While my first day meant filling out paper work regarding patient confidentiality and interaction limitation, I was extremely excited to begin observing appointments to learn more about doctor-patient interaction. One of the most important things I learned about this site in particular are the different areas. The "inside" is made up of treatment tables, where patients can receive ice/heat packs, stretch, or get isolated muscular massages. On the other side, the "outside" is structured more like a gym, with work out equipment throughout for patients to go through their rehabilitative exercises. However, starting next week the inside/outside split will be a downstairs/upstairs division, since the entire facility will be moving location to a larger building! Luckily the staff and patients will remain the same and I will be able to continue my research.
Another interesting division is within the staff. The physical therapists are those with their doctorates and primarily work with patients "inside", performing fire cupping massages, kinesio tape wrapping, and other restorative treatments. The PT techs are either physical therapy school or undergrad students, who guide patients through their exercise programs "outside" or other stretches "inside". As an intern, I'm able to move between the two areas, primarily reading charts and observing regimens during down time "outside" and helping with laundry "inside" during busier hours.
For each week, my on-site adviser asked that I have a question to guide my research. The first week brought a more general question: what level of independency do the patients take with their exercise programs? After watching several outside exercise programs, I noticed that several patients ask the PT tech to explain each exercise and watch their form. However, others who have had more appointments only require the occasional check-in to confirm the number of repetitions or weight amount their therapist wants for them. Some patients ask to do their hardest exercises first and finish with the easier ones, showing that there is a certain flexibility. One of the common requirements for almost all of the knee and hip patients is the "alter g" which is an anti-gravity treadmill to reduce pain upon movement and leaves you looking a little like this:
So far, other than the alter g, there seems to be some similarities between the majority of knee/hip exercise regimens such as squats, lunges, and other quadricep stretches. The specialization seems to occur both within the "outside" workouts and the "inside" treatments, and depending on the patient's fatigue or pain level, certain parts of the program may be skipped or new steps may be added.
I can't wait to see what else I will be able to discover about how the regimens are created and how the doctor-patient interactions are unique for each injury, especially in the new building! Stay tuned for more observations on the physical therapy field and dog gifs next week.
