Week 4 Day2

Almost opposite experience from the last one. Afternoon session in the amputee gym yesterday, had finished with a patient I had been dealing with and noticed one of the new patients sitting on the bed not doing any exercises. She is a middle aged aboriginal lady from the country with somewhat limited english skills. What I've learnt from my limited experience with the aboriginal amputees from the country is that they particularly don't like being indoors for extended periods (like many people) and love being in the sun. Anyway, I asked the lady how her exercises were going, and was not getting definitive responses. What was definite however, was that she wanted to have a rest outside in the sun. I said ok, on the rationale that she'd go outside for 5 minutes and come back to complete the rest of her exercises. in-between helping other patients out, I went to check on her, only for her to refuse to come back inside and that she would either stay in the sun or go back to her room. Looking back I probably didn't stress enough the importance of doing her exercises. I know I would have been butting my head agaisnt the wall (as of today it turns out she no longer wants a prosthesis anyway and will be returning to Kalgoolie soon), but there would have been no harm in giving her the blunt facts (no exercises = poor prosthetic outcome). At the moment we have a few aboriginal ladies, so I will be sure to use the lessons I learnt from this.