Secret ally...

At the moment I am treating a patient who has not only received severe trauma and multiple residual deficits but does not originally come from an English-speaking country. His mother, who cannot speak any English, is present everyday and during their first week at the ward insisted on attending every physio session. The language barrier with the mother was causing difficulties due to the fact that during our treatment we were providing rationales to the patient for the exercises, but the mother couldn’t understand these. During the sessions, her anxiety and worried looks and comments to her son were presenting a hindrance to our treatment sessions and the pain-threshold of our patient. We have since asked for the mother to stay outside for treatments and he has progressed really well. This week, we have decided to bring in a translator to help explain the rationales for encouraging as much active movement as possible, as well as providing her with a HEP they can do together in his room. The fact that she is in a foreign country and cannot freely communicate with us must be extremely stressful for her and hence on her son to translate and explain everything. So, although she has been encroaching on our progress during our sessions I think it is really necessary to keep her involved in the process. I also believe she will be a strong ally in helping gain as much potential as we can from her son.