This Saturday, I worked at Central Texas Rehab. I used to work there every day, but now I just work PRN once a month or so. It is really refreshing to work with adult patients after working with children all through the week. They are generally motivated and work hard. Plus, you can have great convo along the way.
I did a variety of activities.....deductive reasoning puzzles, automatic naming tasks, safety awareness tasks, and a bill pay task. One of the go-to activities to do with patients is a medication routine. Its a great functional task that gives insight into memory and problem solving skills in a real life task.
The pill organizer is set up for 1 week with different times of the day (morning, noon, evening, bed). The pill bottles are filled with beads and all have different "prescriptions". I usually start by explaining the organizer and giving the patient an easy prescription to fill first (take one tab a day).
It is so interesting to watch patients organize in different ways. Some pop every box open and close as they fill. Others open one box at a time to fill. Some patients need to go back and look at the prescription multiple times. Others get distracted half way through. Some totally neglect one side of the organizer. Some patients make mistakes and have no idea. So do it perfectly on the first try. There are great teaching moments along the way. It is always good when family members see this activity, especially when mistakes are made and not recognized by the patient. Medication routines really translate into the patients ability to take care of every day tasks with great independence or no independence at all. So all you new SLPs just starting out there, do medication routines with your patients in inpatient rehab! Its incredibly functional and great for memory and problem solving.
When I was working on Saturday, I had one of my best moments as a therapist. I got to work with a young patient about my age that had a traumatic brain injury after a car accident that resulted in mild-mod aphasia. We completed a simple deductive reasoning puzzle together and worked on reading and writing the words accurately. I chatted with the girl while we were working and her husband stayed through the whole session.
After we finished working, I told her she had done a great job and told her husband that I thought the session went really well. He told me that he thought that she responded well to working with me specifically. He told me thank you for being kind. Then, his wife says, "Yeah. Thanks for being safe". Now she has aphasia and definitely could have accidentally substituted the word "safe" but I think it was one of the biggest compliments I have ever gotten as a speech therapist.
Shouldn't that be what I am striving for as a speech therapist? To be a safe place to land for all my kids I work with through the year and the adult clients I work with briefly? A safe place to try and use their words. A safe place to talk about something that is bothering them. A safe place to try but get things wrong. A safe place to succeed and make strides in their communication.
It was such a small moment, but totally made my day. It is moments like that which remind me why I am a speech therapist on days that I get tired of my job! It helps me to remember to continue being kind and to continue being safe because it goes a long way!
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