This week, while on fieldwork, I needed
to reach into my OTAS bag of tricks. (Luckily,
the bag wasn’t empty.) The professional
skill that I pulled out of the bag (and the skill that I think I used best) was
establishing a therapeutic rapport. I quickly connected with my client and
discovered the number of children she had, the number of great-grandchildren,
what her diagnoses were, etc. Although I
had an extensive list of questions I wanted to ask, I let her set the tone and
speed of the conversation. When she said
that she would soon be moving to an Assisted Living Facility I asked her “How
do you feel about that?” instead of “That’s great!” or “That’s terrible.” Asking her for her feelings is something I
learned to do in OTA-180.
While reaching into my bag, I didn’t
look for assertion, and I should have.
That skill would have come in handy when I asked my client whether she
wanted to go play trivial pursuit in the Cabana Room. The game started at 2, and I asked her at 1:53. She and I were having a good time getting to
know one another, and she didn’t want to leave.
Miss Marcus stopped by at 1:55 to see whether my client was going. I told her “No.” Miss Marcus then asked my client “Why don’t
you go to trivial pursuit? It’ll be good
for you to get out of your room.” The
client then changed her mind. Maybe, my
client needed to be asked twice or maybe the request had to come from a
supervisor as opposed to a student.
Either way, when Miss Marcus asked, the client complied. I believe I need to be more assertive (maybe adopt
the “manner of speech” or “tone of voice” that Miss Marcus used) when I ask the
client to do something.
On the way to the Cabana Room my
client saw 2 of her friends and the receptionist. She spoke to all of them. Plus, once in the room, she saw another
friend of hers, and they talked a bit.
Socially speaking, my client hit the “mother load” on the way to the
game and getting out of her room was a great way to prevent depression and
boredom. This incident helped me to
learn that I readily take the client’s first response as the answer to my requests. Perhaps, sometimes, I need to ask the
question more than once and more assertively
the second time. This might increase my client’s compliance
rates and improve their overall mental health.
My favorite part of the fieldwork
was getting to know my client. That was
my favorite part about fieldwork last semester, too. I like discovering things about their
lives: where they are from, how many
children they had, what kind of work they used to do. I especially like listening to their medical
history to see whether I’ve heard of their diagnoses before and, if they bring
up any surgeries or medications, I like to know see whether I’ve heard of them
before.
Thinking back on the turn of events,
I also like the fact that she got so much social interaction on the way to the
activity room. This further supported
last semester’s claim that group activities were good for a client’s mental
health.
When I think about the image in my
mind of my future client and the actual image I had after meeting my client,
there was a bit of a discrepancy. I had
read in the chart about my client needing Mod A to sit up in bed. That made me think that she was very weak and
frail, and I was a little bit intimidated.
I didn’t want to break any bones in the transfers! But when I actually met my client she was
much “hardier” looking than my mental image.
I was pleasantly surprised. She
was able to stay balanced and seated in her w/c and her limbs did not look
frail. I worried that she would have a
foley that I’d have to carry and was relieved when I didn’t see one. I am pretty sure that I could have dealt with
it, but it was nice to know that I didn’t have to hold onto it and push the w/c
at the same time.
Overall, meeting and interacting
with my client was much easier than I had anticipated. I hope that future interactions go as
smoothly. I just have to remember to not take "no" for an answer when it comes to social activities. :-)
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