I recently finished my paediatric placement. Those of you who have worked with children, know you have to spend a lot of your time explainining your activities and hep to the family/parents. One particular patient I had from Malaysia was accompanied at all times by a private teacher, a private carer and as some times his mother.
Although we have to spend a lot of time explaining what child's behaviours we need to facilitate or change, I learnt from this particular client that it is also important to observe the parent's behaviour. These particular carers were still spoon-feeding him, they constantly carried him, when he took to long to get off the floor or wasn't doing an activity correctly, they would simply do it for him. It explained a lot, as during my sessions when the child had problems with balance or doing a task, he would simply flop to the ground. I could see then, how he was just expecting me to pick him up or do the task for him.
After learning this, I spoke to the carer's/family and explained how I would like them also to alter their behaviour, and how that would benefit and strengthen the child. I feel this had a great improvement on the childs saving responses, balance and overall strength and development. I feel I learnt that you must be aware of the entire picture of your patient's lives, not just the short time you spend with them during physiotherapy sessions!
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2 comments:
I had a similar experience on my paeds placement. The mother of a four year old boy would always come into the treatment room which I initially had no problem with. But then she would constantly interfere and distract the boy from what i was trying to get him to do, which was normally paying attention to one thing at a time. Eventually I had to ask my supervisor to speak to the mother, and after that our treatment sessions ran very smoothly.
I had a few of the same situations on my paediatric placement. One of the mothers was very distractive and kept interupting my treatent. Speaking to my supervisor, we came up with a trial of both myself and supervisor being present for the next session. I took the session as normal and the supervisor stayed with the mother and explained things, the importance of the exercises and why they are being done.
After this session the mother had much more faith in my abilities and the sessions ran much smoother. It seemed that she was just concerned all along.
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