A Stimulating Day

Jackie was up and ready to go by 8am.  Becca spent the first half of speech therapy having breakfast with him in a different patient dining room than the one he ate in twice before.  This dining area has more independent patients than the other room.  She stayed with him the entire meal and said he did well.  This is another step to introducing him to normal eating environments.  The second half of ST included memory exercises as well as playing Black Jack.

Physical therapy included a trip up to the fifth floor gym for a work out on the stim bike.  Jackie remained sitting in his wheelchair with his feet extended forward onto the pedals. This was a new experience for Jackie and one that had the goal of stimulating many of the muscles down Jackie’s left side starting with the abs down through the leg.  The electrodes when activated created movement in the muscles to help the left leg pedal the bike.  The machine could gauge how much the right vs the left leg was working and also tracked the pace and distance.  Since it was Jackie’s first time, the stimulation levels were adjusted until the perfect balance was struck between comfort for Jackie and work out performance.  Jackie pedaled a little over 2 miles and seemed to really enjoy the workout.

Lunch was sandwiched between two rest periods and by 2pm Jackie was ready for OT.  Paula was off today so Jackie worked with Nicki.  The first thing she did was an electronic stimulation treatment on Jackie’s left shoulder.  While that was running its 30 minute course, we went into the vision room were Jackie was tested on the Dynavision machine.  He sat in front of a large black metal box which had a screen with many lights.  Different programs could be selected to test different eye movements.  When the small squares lit up, Jackie was supposed to touch each button within a certain time frame.  He did several different sessions and most confirmed vision weakness while looking left.  He is going to have a follow up visit with the eye doc on Friday.  The results of the tests today may help fine tune Jackie’s glasses.  After the testing was complete Jackie practiced printing letters. He also practiced standing throughout the session for pressure relief from his chair.

Jackie enjoyed visits from family members today and was exhausted by bedtime.  Overall a very stimulating day – PTL!