Last Week :'-(

Hey everyone! Aaaahhhhh, my time interning at Synergy PT has officially come to an end :’-(. I’ve met so many wonderful new people, and I definitely plan to come back and visit to reminisce all the amazing memories there :-). Now, last week I promised you guys some graphs and data, so let’s get into that first before delving in to my experiences for the week. I hope you guys are ready; buckle up and keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle, the week 10 blog post is officially underway!!

So for my presentation, along with displaying the aggregate data for the entire sample, I decided to implement two case studies on individual patients: one with heightened compliance and thus increasing improvement, the other with depressed compliance and thus stagnant improvement. For confidentiality reasons, I’ll introduce you to them as “Laura” (compliant patient) and “Bobby” (non-compliant patient). Now, with regards to Laura, she first came into the clinic rolling in a wheelchair with completely swollen legs and severe knee dysfunction. Fast forward six weeks of steadily monitoring her progress and analyzing her compliance, Laura transitioned to a walker and ultimately assisted walking (walking with the support of another therapist). Such progress is tremendous in such a short amount of time. But, how could this be? Well, Laura initially wasn’t a very compliant patient in the first two weeks of my survey, receiving scores of 50% (out of possible 100%). And as a result, she was suffering major setbacks and procuring marginal, if any, improvement. Now, this is understandable of course. With a condition as severe as Laura’s, continuous activity is essentially a must in order to regain adequate strength and function. However, she described to me the reason for her low compliance was simply her wanting her life back and enjoying simple yet sweet activities such as watching of TV or just relaxing in the couch. It’s unfortunate that such a simple desire ended up costing her health. Yet, thereafter, she made a point to pursue her therapeutic activities more diligently at home, scoring 100% on each of her final 4 weeks. She described that 75% of her active life was dedicated to physical therapy, highlighting the significance of continued work outside the clinic. And boy did she prove it, way to go Laura! :-)

Now, on to our next case study, we have Bobby. Bobby is a great man and has his heart in the best of places. He suffers from hip/feet pains his walking pattern, postural strength, etc. Now even though we mentioned Bobby is a noncompliant, it’s not because he’s being lazy or doesn’t trust the effectiveness of the therapy; it’s because he has extreme personal matters which really take up all his time :-(. Now yes, this isn’t something the therapists can control, but it just heightens the significance of the hour a week we have with him. Because of his personal situation, he rarely gets adequate sleep (something we high school students have unfortunately become too comfortable with). Yet, with his age and current condition, it is imperative he gets at least a proper and thus playing a factor towards his stagnant improvement. Every week that I’ve worked with Bobby, he has always come in extremely tight (in his muscles) and tired. Now, as we mentioned, this really derails him from “following through” with the treatment regimens we prescribe him at the clinic. And as you’ll see below from these two example, compliance, though as insignificant as it may seem, presents a very direct correlation towards improvement and is obviously not something to be taken lightly.

Now that you all see the power of compliance, let’s get into my experiences for this week! For starters, I got to feel what it’s like to get dry needled :-0!

As you see from the pictures above, it wasn’t exactly a painless experience, but I really wanted to try it as I see Vincent performing it on patients all the time and hear their loud screams thinking, “Cmon, it can’t be thaaatttttt bad.” But, I was wrong. It is THAT bad. But enough of my whining, let me explain what exactly dry needling is. Dry needling refers to a modality of therapy in which fine needles are inserted into myofascial (“muscle tissue”) trigger points, tendons, ligaments, or near nerves. The objective is stimulate a healing response to loosen up scarred tissue, this eradicating tightness within the area. I gotta say after having the needles placed in me, my right shoulder/back felt much more looser and displayed expanded range of motion (even though there was a bit inflammation, but that went away by the end of the night)!

Along with Vincent stabbing needles in my shoulder/back, this week was a great opportunity to thank all the patients I’ve been able to interact with. I’ve so many wonderful and compelling stores from such a diverse patient population; it’s something I will truly remember as I take the next step to college. In addition I got the thank my wonderful Synergy family for guiding throughout these past 10 weeks and teaching me anything and everything they knew. Vincent, Wendy, Danny, Chandra, Drew, Emily, Kathy, and Bruin: THANK YOUUU!!! I will always cherish to even have this amazing opportunity to meet so many new faces and learn leaps and bounds in such a short amount of time. And finally, thank you all for sticking with me during this amazing ride! Moving forward, I’ll be working on my presentation, hoping to nail it to the best of my ability :-). I’m both nervous and anxious, but that just makes it fun, right? Anyways, one last thank you to Synergy and my blog followers!!! Enjoy the weekend everyone :-).

Family <3