The role of carers

Hi Guys, I thought i'd go back to my first prac, musculo outpatients, for the final blog. This patient was an elderly Italian lady who was always accompanied by her husband. She has been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and also has shoulder and neck issues. Her husband is there mainly as an interpreter when needed as she speaks only basic english.

This lady was in a lot of pain which was mainly the neck/shoulder/fibromyalgia and a little bit of emotional. She was in a cycle of decreased activity d/t increased pain and her husband always helped her if she had to roll over while on the plinth. She was approaching d/c and had a set of exercises to do. However not all were particularly appropriate and she found them hard to perform during a flare.

I spoke to my supervisor about possible strategies to increase this ladies compliance to the HEP and generally get her moving more. Her husband was very supportive and obviously did not like to see her in pain. The supervisor and I came up with a way to improve her HEP compliance and also to help the husband so he did not feel so helpless. I gave her some basic neck and shoulder stretches to perform at home. The difference was that the husband helped with applying overpressure and with helping her to attain the positions required to do these exercises. It was immediately obvious that he was really happy to be included in his wifes exercises. When they came back she was feeling a bit better and had been doing all her exercises.

The husband had also been massaging her and watched closely what I was doing so he could add this at home. Where I had to draw the line was when he asked me to show him how to do Cx mobilisations.

Involving the husband made a big difference to both of them. She was performing her exercises more often and was able to do some she couldn't do without her husbands help. On the other hand he didn't feel so helpless and felt that he was actively involved in looking after her.
What I learnt from this situation is that involving a person's partner can really help to improve the patients outcome and also help the partner cope with the situation.

Hope everyone has a great time on rural and good luck with PCR results.