17/06/2020 – 1 Hour
Subjective assessment and introduction.
Todays session was a teams meeting with the clinic supervisors and other second year therapy and rehabilitation students to begin to prepare us for the clinic placement in third year. This involved an introduction to what to expect from the summer sessions followed by covering what is involved in the subjective assessment, which included a discussion about the following topics:
- the key aims, from both the patients and therapists perspective
- general health and contraindications
- red flags
- social/family history
- easing/aggravating factors
From covering these topics it gave me a good refresher of my current knowledge base, whilst also adding a deeper level of knowledge and understanding to further help me when it comes to clinic placement and working with future patients.
Pros:
- Learnt about Cauda Equina syndrome and Vertebrobasilar Insufficiency (VBI)
- Refresher of first and second year knowledge in preparation for third year
Areas to improve:
- Need to read more around the various elements of the subjective assessment
- Need to speak up more in group discussions
- Have more confidence
Action plan:
- In order to improve my confidence levels I need to expand my knowledge base. By doing this I will feel more prepared and able to speak out in group discussions without a fear of making frequent mistakes.
To be able to make the desired improvements and reach my goals I need to read around the subject more including the use of journal articles, textbooks and podcasts. In addition to this, working through case studies will also help my confidence and knowledge base because it will enable me to use working examples to practice and apply my knowledge and techniques and make me think about the different aspects of injuries and how to use my knowledge of the subjective assessment in a practical sense to begin to build up a picture of the cause of the injury and what treatment route would be the most appropriate cause of action.
24/06/2020 – 1 hour
Subjective Assessment 2
During the second teams meeting, the discussion on the subjective assessment continued. In this session, it started with a case study to apply the knowledge previously learnt in the last session and to underpin understanding too by putting the theory into practice. The rest of the session then continued to look at more aspects of the subjective assessment that hadn’t yet been covered in the previous weeks session. This included the following:
- Medications
- Psychosocial model (psychological, biological, and social factors affecting injury and rehabilitation)
Pros:
- Had a newfound, expanded level of knowledge around the aspects of the subjective history
- The discussions from the session allowed me to listen to the opinions and inputs from different people. This is a good approach to learning because it allows for me to hear a point of view or approach that perhaps I hadn’t or wouldn’t of though of myself.
Areas to improve:
- My ability to apply my theoretical knowledge to case studies and practical situations is limited. This needs to be worked on as it is an essential skill in being able to treat injuries.
- I had only briefly come across the psychosocial model before, therefore, my knowledge and understanding was limited and I would benefit by looking into it further.
Action plan:
- To be able to improve my ability to apply the theory knowledge I have learnt to future practical situations and live patients, I need to practice case studies and applying different techniques to different injuries.
- Also to expand my knowledge on the new aspects of the subjective assessment, learnt in todays session, it would be beneficial for me to research about the psychosocial model and the different medication categories.