I had to deal with patients in critical condition during my cardio placement. One of the patients that I had was a 17-year-old girl who had a history of drug overdose. She appeared really really drowsy and had a Ramsay sedation score of 4-5 which means she either has brisk or sluggish response to loud noise/?touch (light glabellar tap. The glabella is the skin between the eyebrows). So the intervention for her that day included manual hyperinflation, suctioning and passive limb movements. I knew I was not very good at explaining things in a really simple and concise manner and I knew that I really had to get heaps of practice explaining interventions techniques to patients in easy-to-understand terms. So I explained everything that I was about to do then and carried on with the treatment, I talked to the patient as well despite her not responding to me or even opening her eyes but I thought that was ok. At the back of my mind I had the idea that there’s this chance that she might actually be listening to me. I thought about what I read and heard about not talking over patients -that are ‘unconscious’- about their condition because they might well be able to hear what you’re saying and they may get upset, etc. I saw the patient the next day and basically carried out my treatment the same manner.
So the next day I passed by that patient’s bed and saw her family there talking to her. I got excited to see her awake and conscious so I went over to say hi. To my amazement, she told me she knew me and that I’m a physio student and then she said thanks for talking to her. So that experience taught me to always communicate effectively with every patient that I come across.
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