Important family/progress meeting
Family meetings are basically important discussions that take place around every 6 weeks. They are an opportunity for me and Anita to talk over her progress with the staff. As well as the staff from the rehabilitation hospital it is also attended by a social worker and brain injury specialist from Milton Keynes. Each specialist area reports on how Anita is progressing including Psychology, Speech and Language Therapy (SALT), Nursing, Occupational Therapy (OT) and Physiotherapy.
OT: Anita has begun to initiate using her left hand more and is also using it more when dressing. These movements need to be carried over into other activities. They are also being carried out while she is standing but she finds it hard to complete other tasks while standing. She continues to be impulsive so the goal is to try and reduce this to improve the quality of her movements.
SALT: Anita is carrying on with her facial and breathing exercises showing more control, better pacing of speech and better swallowing. Her mouth control has improved but she has some clicking in her jaw. I wanted Anita to visit Diana Farragher for facial phsyio because she has had some successful results. The staff will look into the validity of this.
Physiotherapy: Anita is getting more awareness when standing or transferring and is taking more time. She is able to stand for longer with less use of the back slab support and is tolerating more gait work. She is still struggling to plan and set up her movements. There appears to be some subtle changes in sensations in her upper body. She can pull herself up well but needs to work on pushing herself up to standing taking her weight on and straightening the left leg. Anita is now able to walk from the gym to her room without needing to stop and sit. She does this with the assistance of the back slab, quadrapod, a bandage and one assistant. She is better transferring her weight from left to right and has more activity on her left when taking weight. The use of back slab will be phased out to improve muscle activity in the left knee.
It was decided there would be more discussion to clarify with us the short, medium and long term goals. It was explained to me that a provisional discharge date was usually set first then once that was done the community rehabilitation input and care plans could be done. I expressed concerns that the staff were prepared to discharge Anita without knowing what continuing physiotherapy she would be able to receive. It seemed that the process was wrong to me!