Communication is the Key to Success

Dear all,
It is now two weeks into my cardiopulmonary placement. I am starting to get the hang of everything but occasionally, I still have difficulty carrying out my treatment with some patients.

Mr X is a 70 year old/Male is having end stage renal failure and COPD and suffering from depression. He was admitted due to chest infection and thus referred for physiotherapy.

He SOOB in chair all day and refuses to do anything except to the shower. For the last two days, I have been trying to get him to do some UL and LL exercises but it just didn’t work. He commented that he knew doing exercises was good for him and he would do it when he is ready. I persisted and tried again to get him to do some exercises. This time round, he got very agitated and chased me out of the room. I was disappointed with myself for not being able to get the patient to do anything.

Today, I tried a different technique and it worked. Instead of telling the patient: “Mr X, I am going to get you to do some exercises”, I told him: “I am not going to get you to do much. I am here to just have a look at how you are sitting to standing, and to see how’s the movement in your arms and legs.” The patient finally got up from the chair, did some shoulder flexion exercises and also some knee extension in sitting. Although the patient did only one STS, it was very encouraging for me. If I had thought about this trick few days’ back, I could have gotten him to do more and definitely able to get more air into his lungs.

It is all about playing with words and changing the way I communicate with the patient. Having good communication is such an important asset in our profession and I will try different ways of talking to my patients till they start to get moving. I will try the trick again tomorrow with Mr X and hope it still works. If not, I just have to keep on trying.

Do any of you having any ideas of how to get my patients off that chair?? Thanks!!