Journals
These journals reflect my weekly experiences as an athletic training student. Each journal reflects either an actual patient contact experience, or something I am working on in my athletic training courses.
When do you feel less confident as an ATS? Compare that to when you feel the most confident?
When I am in the clinic, I am very confident in assisting the athletes. At the beginning of the semester I was very hesitate about actions I would perform, but now I am very confident in almost everything I have done in the clinic. One thing I am struggling on being confident is trigger point/massaging. There is a lot of swimmers who come in with shoulder and back problems, and I have been having trouble finding tight muscles in their back. Once I find the muscle, I am having a hard time holding the muscle and trying to relive the tightness. I have practiced multiple times with my preceptor in being more confident in trigger point, but I am not compared to stim or ultrasound. When I am doing stim or ultrasound I am very confident in being able to tell my preceptor what the machine needs to be on and what type I am going to use. However, when it comes to trigger point massage, I am hesitate and I always want my preceptor to come and make sure I am doing it right. Although I have been practicing a lot on patients that have came in, I have learned a lot about how to do trigger point. I am still working on being more confident when someone needs trigger point release done. I know once I practice and practice, I will feel more confident in myself to be able to perform this on the athletes. In order for me to become confident I have to practice multiple times on different patients. Which is what I did to be confident in ultrasound and stim. So in order for me to not be hesitate I am going to continue practicing to make sure I am confident when performing trigger point release. In order to achieve this goal, I am going to practice more on different patients because everyone is different. I also want to be able to allow the patients know I am confident when doing it because then they will trust me with their treatment.
0 Comments
Describe a treatment/thberapeutic intervention you performed on or designed for a patient. Why did you select that and what was your intended outcome? How did you assess its effectiveness? How will that experience influence your future clinical decision making
When I was working with a soccer player who just had surgery on her LCL and was doing a lot of pool workouts, I came up with some exercises to do in the pool. I first just let her warm up by treading water in the pool. She normally does body squats and side lunges, but I came up with a few other exercises for her. When she comes to rehab, she never has the attitude in wanting to achieve anything to make herself better. Since she isn't able to play this season, she has been taking it slow on her rehab. So since it was my turn with her, I wanted her to have some fun while doing her rehab. So after she did he 20 minute treading water, I made her go to the swallow end and I wanted her to do the same concept as the body squats, but I tweaked it just a little. I made her squat down and then explode out up from the squat. These are called " I'ma star" and I made her say that once she exploded from her squat. Now at first she was hesitate with doing it, but after she just laughed and completed them. When she was jump, she was hesitate too but after a while she just relaxed and did the exercise very well while having some fun. Then after she did that I let her go back to doing the normal exercises. So she did 3 sets of 10 on side lunges, and I went to find a beach ball. After she was finished, I told her we were going to do something new. I explained to her that I was going to throw the beach ball and I wanted her to get her first under the ball and head it back to me. So we started off easy, and I would throw the ball not to far from her to let her get used to the new exercise. Then after she got the hang of it, I would move the ball farther from her make the run in the water making sure she was using her injured leg to get to the ball. After she started moving well to the ball, I made her turn around and I would smack the beach ball for her to turn around then throw it. I choose to do this drill because I wanted her to be confident in her cutting, and performing the drill she thought nothing of her knee because she was concentrating on heading the ball back tome. My intended outcome for this drill was to make sure she was moving her in different directions without realizing it. When I had worked with her, she had been really hesitate on her side movement, so I wanted to show her she could do it without even realizing she was doing it. After her workout I explained why I choose that drill to her, and she didnt even realize how much she moved her knee. I also choose to do that drill because I wanted her to realize she can make rehab fun. I personally went through rehab, and its hard to get motivated when you know you won't come back for a season. So I wanted to show her that rehab can be fun and motivate her to work hard to get positive outcomes in rehab. I think this will help me with my clinical decisions in the future because I am able to see each patient differently. I can treat patients differently on their emotional, mental, and physical status. By working with different patients I able to see who is motivated and who needs help. This will help me in choosing what kind of exercises to do with the patient, if I am able to push them more than what they are giving or they need some help to get through the processing. I also do think by me personally going through the process, I have an advantage in conducting rehab with patients. How are you progressing with your clinical packet? are you meeting your goals for that as well?
So far my clinical packet is going by slowly. I haven't been keeping up with it as well as I should. I have recently been writing down more masteries than before. Since we have now started more practicals, I am able to get more masteries. I also have gotten 10 masteries just this week due to filling in my packet from my practicals. I am not meeting my goals as well. Although I have met my goals for the past few weeks, the weeks after I did not meet my goals. I believe now that volleyball is over, I will have more time to spend focusing all on academics. Which I am excited to do. I feel lately I have been pushed to do all volleyball, and I haven't had much time to study for classes. Which isn't right I know. Although that is in the past, and I am already am improving on getting my masteries. |
Reflective JournalsThese journal entries express my experience as an athletic training student Archives
April 2019
|