OT rules!

First of all, a big thank you to everyone who checks out my blog, all you regular visitors, as I've now had over 1,000 hits! Secondly, I think I am going to delete my second OT blog, as I tend to write about everything here, including the OT stuff. To that end...

I walked into the day hospital office manager's office, which I do rarely when I need to send off a fax, and happened to see a letter from one of the consultants (doctors) lying on her desk from a woman we recently did a Continuing Care Assessment on...I was intrigued to note that the letter he had dictated to be sent to the woman's GP and social worker was practically word for word what I had written in the medical notes. After having seen the patient who was so demented I had to get all my information from her carer (the patient is already in residential care, they are now petitioning to have her moved to a nursing home), I jumped at the chance to talk to her daughter who showed up in the afternoon. There were several discrepancies in the stories offered by the carer versus the daughter, such as the carer said there is no longer any difference in the behavior exhibited by the patient whether family members are present or not, while the daughter adamantly states the patient definitely still recognizes her and her brother. The daughter also told me she had recently taken her mother home for a two night/1 day visit, during which time the daughter stated her mother seemed to be much more herself, and became more demanding (which the daughter took to be a good sign, given that her mother was a strongly-opinionated, very vocal school teacher previously). The daughter is horribly conflicted, because her mother said to her many times over the years, "I don't ever want to be in a home." And the daughter was inquiring as to whether her mother would basically be bed-bound if she were moved to a nursing home (to which I had to answer, most likely, yes)...it's horrible but the minute people enter an institution their functional skills are pretty much sure to decline. And her mother wanted to know if they moved to a house built for someone who's disabled, arranged 24-hour supervision with various family members, and got carers and all home adaptations, could they care for her at home? To which I was happily able to say yes, you have power of attorney, they cannot place her in a nursing home without your consent, and you should consult the citizen's advice bureau for your mother's and your legal rights. I was the only one to gather this info from the daughter, which I dutifully reported in the medical notes, and as I said, it was repeated virtually word for word in the consultant's findings letter. He finished by stating that this family needs extensive social services input as there are obviously complex social issues at work that need to be resolved before the continuing care process can proceed. How vindicated and purposeful did I feel after seeing that letter!

Below you'll find some more Cinco de Mayo photos that Nicole (Tufts Nicole) shared with me today...