Physical Therapy Case Studies

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The next pt was Matthew Dew a 57-year-old male with a C4-C5 spinal cord injury due to a motorcycle accident in October of last year. The pt presented to therapy for a treatment session with a manual chair he controlled using a head ray. The pt complained of acne on his noise that he said was due to starting a new CA medication. He seemed very upset about the reaction and his appearance. Dr. Morgan reassured him that he looked fine and that it would go away. As we learned in class, as physical therapist we are also responsible for the psychological components that our patients may present with. This can especially be seen in neuro patients with depression, mood swings, personality changes, etc. We need to be prepared to calm our pts and talk …show more content…
The patient complained of tenderness around his port in his L shoulder which is something that as a therapist we should monitor to ensure we don’t do anything or give any exercise that would cause any pain or irritation to the port. The pt came with his nurse who stayed for therapy and assisted in some of the transfers to and from the mat. To transfer the pt to the mat Dr. Morgan preformed a stand pivot transfer as discussed in class. Once the pt was on the mat he showed clonus in sitting in his abdominal region along with his hands due to his increased spasticity. Dr. Morgan helped to place the pt’s hand into an anti- spastic formation behind his back. We were taught this technique in class by using the PT’s fingers to help to block the pt’s fingers from going into the flexed position seen with spasticity. Dr. Morgan then asked the pt to try to weight shift from side to side. A force had to be applied to keep the hand from sliding on the mat while another hand was placed over his elbow on the L arm to keep the arm extended assisting with stability. Another intervention we performed that we discussed in class was the air splint. This splint was used to isolate the shoulder by facilitating positioning of the elbow in