These past few weeks have flown by! I've gotten to observe a lot of patients the past week, and a few of the therapists and patients actually let me get some hands on experience! For example, Erin almost always starts off by having the patient stand facing away from her. She finds the posterior superior iliac spines and places her thumbs on them. The patient then performs a series of movements, such as bending forwards, backwards, side to side, and marching, and Erin traces the movement of the ISPS. Sometimes one side will move farther than the other or one won't move at all, and from there she determines what joint is stiff or what muscles are tight. So one patient today has been coming in for a while now, and she was experiencing lower back pain and stiffness in her hips. Erin showed me where to place my hands in order to feel the acetabulofemoral joint not gliding smoothly. We compared one side to the other, and one was clearly immobile. After some stretching and cuing to attempt to release the joint to no avail, Erin resorted to a manual manipulation. The patient was laying on her side, with the bad joint facing up. Erin was behind her, and firmly hit the back of her hip forward. It looked pretty strange, but the patient seemed very pleased that she had found just the right spot! She got up and walked around and felt some immediate relief.
One really cool thing about this profession that i've noticed is that you can do things that will provide patients with instant results. That's a pretty amazing skill to have. I've noticed many patients sigh in relief as therapists are doing traction techniques with them or being able to stretch farther after the dry needling.
Tomorrow is my last day in the office. I'll only be in for about half the day, but I made sure I'll be there for the patient whom I am doing my cast study on. Hopefully she's doing better today! My family is heading to Florida on Wednesday, good thing we missed the storm this weekend!
hours: 12/27 4.5
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