Patience with Patients

I am currently on my neuro placement, on an inpatient neurosurgery ward where patients have acquired brain injuries resulting from many different causes. As I have only been on the ward for a few days, I haven’t treated any of my own patient’s independently yet, but have observed the physio’s during their treatment sessions in the physio gym and assisted where able. One patient in particular that I have observed is a man who underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour on his pituitary gland. He is high functioning and able to walk with 2x physio assist. Cognitively, he is normal however I query whether he has frontal lobe signs…

His main problem at the moment is hypersensitivity on his (L) upper and lower limbs. At the start of each session, the physio has been massaging and stimulating his (L) foot with the aim of desensitising it. This proves quite a difficult task for the physio, as the whole time, the patient complains and whinges about the pain and accuses the physio of trying hurt him constantly. For the rest of the session, he continually accuses the physio of having unreasonable expectations of him and that her treatment is ineffective. Of course, the physio’s treatment plan is appropriate and the poor thing must battle through each session, tolerating this patient’s behaviour which is unreasonable, and borderline aggressive. He even directs questions to me about whether ‘they teach us this crap in physio school because it’s a load of bulls**t, and we should have more empathy for our patients…’

I think I’m only scraping the surface of what is to come from this patient when I begin treating more closely, because so far, he's been pretty nice to me. I’ve observed the physio deal with the situation by explaining her reasons for doing the treatment and that it is to benefit him, but sometimes she just has to stay silent and ignore his inappropriate comments. The physio appears to get quite frustrated with the patient’s behaviour, but she is very patient with him and always gets through the session. I hope that when I become more hands on as the placement progresses, I will have the same patience and tolerance in the situation that the physio has and hopefully get through the sessions without too much trouble – for all involved!