Our greatest gift in this
entire process was meeting Martha, an Occupational Therapist, or OT. There are truly angels among us, and Martha exemplifies them them in all ways. Her charm and caring attitude was infectious, as was her
friendship.
Martha worked extensively with John in the SNF. She worked on balance and training normal movement in his right arm. Every normal movement sent electrical messages to his brain about what his arm should be doing.
John wore special splints at night that Martha hand-built for him. These splints kept his arm in a normal position while he slept.
Martha worked extensively with John in the SNF. She worked on balance and training normal movement in his right arm. Every normal movement sent electrical messages to his brain about what his arm should be doing.
John wore special splints at night that Martha hand-built for him. These splints kept his arm in a normal position while he slept.
Martha worked on weight
bearing exercises extensively. This means she put his right hand down beside
him, kept his arm straight and had him lean on the arm. He had to put “weight”
on that arm. That weight helps the muscles remain functional and helps prevent
“tone”. This is not the same "tone" that musicians know: “tone” to an OT is the stiffness that occurs when muscles no longer get
used. The muscles eventually lose their ability to move because of the tone and then
the arm becomes frozen. She also did a lot of “range of motion” exercises with
him. This involved keeping the joints of his arm and hand moving with the
normal movement. The reason for this was to keep the joint from freezing.
Unfortunately, the damage to John's brain was so severe that he has not regained normal movement in his arm. It was not that the therapy was unsuccessful, it was that John decided not to follow through with the work and exercises that Martha taught him. John made his own decision on this.
What we both learned from Martha was an attitude of joy. No matter what the final outcome of the occupational therapy, the outcome of the psychological therapy of being in her presence guided us in the direction of the spiritual healing that was and is far more important.
Unfortunately, the damage to John's brain was so severe that he has not regained normal movement in his arm. It was not that the therapy was unsuccessful, it was that John decided not to follow through with the work and exercises that Martha taught him. John made his own decision on this.
What we both learned from Martha was an attitude of joy. No matter what the final outcome of the occupational therapy, the outcome of the psychological therapy of being in her presence guided us in the direction of the spiritual healing that was and is far more important.
Martha is an NDT, or
Neurological Development Technique Certified Therapist. She also gave us
referrals for other NDT Physical Therapists and excellent Speech Therapists.
She has her own private practice but maintains her connections with other
therapists through professional associations. I strongly recommend that you
seek out NDT Specialists. Those therapists are not even allowed to study the
NDT training path until they have had years of therapy experience.
Martha's radiance still sparkles in our life. The gratitude we both feel for having experienced her cannot be measured. Although John no longer gets therapy from her, we still see her on a social basis regularly.
2014 Nancy Weckwerth
Your understanding of tone is of great interest to us lay folks because so many of us work on "muscle tone" in specific areas of our bodies. The way muscles work is really fascinating. There is no such thing as a relaxed state. Here's what Wiki revealed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_tone. I would like to hear more of the specifics of your experience in this area.
ReplyDeleteI had a roommate at USC who was in a postgraduate program in Geriatric OT. I developed the greatest respect for that field of work.
Very interesting observations about J's differing attitudes toward music and other activities. I wondered if John's attitude to the weight training would have been different if he were a pianist or a violinist. For his instruments you need the fingers but not the alternating flexion of the elbow, wrist and shoulder.