Reflection #1

Stephanie Ortega
2-4-09
Reflection #1
Internship

Today was my first day going to my internship site. I was a little bit shy, because I didn’t know anyone there and hoping everything would go out well. I’m doing my internship in East Providence in a physical therapy place; because my topic is physical therapy. The place is inside is not so big, it’s small and it seems like a place I can get use to and won’t have any problems. When I got there, I got a little tour around the place and what each equipment is used for. I just hope I don’t get bored, even though the first few hours in the morning until 10a.m. it was slow, there was no patients there. The employees there are friendly and got along with them pretty well. When it’s slow they made read through the employee handout and everything I need to know there. When the patients started to arrive, I mostly followed someone around and they would explain to me the patients’ problems, what had happened to them, and why they did that specific therapy on them. The physical therapist made me look through the books he had, like the anatomy book and showed me pictures of where the patient has the problem at. I also got a break too. I also helped a patient do some of their activities. Before I left, I folded some of the towels. They do laundry a lot there because they have to keep everything clean and make sure they have enough towels for each patient. The patients usually go to the physical therapy for about thirty minutes to an hour. It mostly depends on the problem they have. The first patient that came in was an elderly lady; she has problems sitting and doesn’t do much exercise at home. She crosses her legs while trying to sit and plops and gets tired very easily. They made her walk from chair to chair and do exercises with her legs There was an elderly lady that had done a few exercises and then she said she feels like she’s going to faint, so the physical therapist took her blood pressure and it was very high. So they had her doing nothing just in case something might happen to her and they can get sued for it. So the therapist was going to make a phone call to her doctor so they can let her doctor know. There was another patient, that while walking from a game in Providence, a car passed by and broke his arm, he was the only patient today that didn’t have any problems doing the exercises, and he is a strong man. There was a man that had problems in his spinal cord and the doctors had to put metal in his body to hold it in, I think the name of the metal is called titan, they had to do an ultra sound and they massaged him as well. They do a lot of massaging and ultra sounds for those that have pain in there body. The last patient of the day, well before I left, was a lady around her thirties, who has no balance and feels like she gets motion sickness. I thought this was something very interesting and I’m thinking of doing my project on the problem she has. For example, when she walks straight and turns her head left, she feels dizzy and feels like the world is spinning around and may fall down towards that same direction; or like when she’s laying down and stands up from her bed she falls off her bed or about to fall off. She has been having this problem all her life and it’s in her genes. There really isn’t a cure for this problem, you just have to live with it and get therapy. This is something weird but very interesting to learn about. I thought it was fun time, I learned a lot, it felt like I was learning a lot more anatomy than ever. This has been a great experience and I am hoping to get as much as possible from it.