home exercise programs

As part of the community physiotherapy placement, studenta re required to provide 2 patients with home exercise programs (HEP). I was assigned one patients from a Abilities group (post stroke) and one from an aqua class (Parkinsons Patient). For my patient in the abilities group i managed to pull her aside during the walk, and ask her a few simple subjective questions such as why she was attending physio, what her major problems are, has she had any recent falls, etc. I then had to observe her movement and balance whilst conducting the clas to determine which exercises would be most beneficial for her. I then developed a home exercise program based on a very short subjective and objective assesment.

It was really hard!!! As a student you make sure you know a bit more about the patient before giving them exercises to do at home. But in the community setting where you only see the patienst for an hour and in that time need to run the class and do home exercise programs, its challenging. So this week i get a chance to revise the program with her and see how she went, fingers crossed it works. There needs to be some form of assesment procedure lined out and documented for these patients to make it more reliable and indiviual.