Day 305 - Monday 27th February 2006
Tissues at the ready.
A sad day today, or maybe it's just me.
Early start today, with kp getting up around 8.30am (that's early for kp). We had a visit to the OT today for "assessments". I think the OT realised the other week that kp wasn't 100% from a mental perspective and she rightly felt that this needs to be further assessed so the right treatment can be given. So today, kp had 11 assessments.
We had psyched ourselves up for 1 or 2 tests but not 11. All in all, we were there for about 2 hours.
I won't recall all the tests, but I will try and give a flavour of what kp went through.
Early on, there was a test where kp was presented with a series of strange shapes (on the left hand side of the table). She was then presented with a more complex shape which had (somewhere in it) one of the shapes she had on the left. She had to trace the easy shape within the complex diagram. It sounds complicated, but it wasn't as hard as it sounds. She got about 6 out of 10 right where most people would get them all. The other 4, she argued with the OT, that those shapes weren't present in the diagrams on the right at all. The OT showed her where they were.
kp:- oh yeah
She had a few more shape related ones, things like recreating the diagram you see on the left on a blank piece of paper on the right. Sounds easy, but for Karen (who doesn't see a lot of things if they are to the left), she missed out key parts of the diagrams and couldn't see that they were missing.
All the tests were timed, and they weren't considered over until Karen said she was finished.
An interesting result of one tests was that Karen was presented with 2 straight lines, one was a very short straight line, the other was long (going the full width of the paper). Karen had to mark where she thought the middle of each line was. I have marked in red where kp thought the middle of each line was.
Now, I thought it very strange how she nearly got the little one correct, but was so off on the big one. The OT went on to explain, that Karen doesn't see as long as line as we do. She misses a lot of the left hand side out, so that IS the middle from her point of view. I found this a little sad, but intriguing.
So, by this time, Karen probably had about 6 or 7 tests behind her, and had done "ok". She hadn't got everything right in a test (which a stroke-free person would have done), but she had got SOME right. So, I expect at this stage, kp was getting more than a little frustrated with the tests and herself. Then came the crunch test.
kp was presented with 10 cards, each had a picture of a face at a different angle. Imagine spinning someone round on a chair and taking 10 photos of their head as it turned round. Karen had to rearrange the cards so that they were in the correct order. In other words, they showed the head at all the different angles (in the right order) until the head had rotated 360'.
The assistant OT started the clock and kp just stared at the heads. 1 minute passed with the occasional furtive hand gesture as if she was going to rearrange them, but she didn't.
The OT stepped in at this point and reread the instructions.
Another 30 seconds passed, and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. And then the tears and upset came on full force.
kp:- I don't get it. I don't understand it at all.
Karen (pre-accident) would have walked this test and been shouting all the way through "Yes, YES, YESSS !", but instead she was demoralised and very upset.
I comforted her and tried to make her see that it wasn't that big a deal, but she then said :-
kp:- But, I know I could have done this before.
dp:- Yes, but the OT is going to show you tips for how you can get round this problem in the future
No words really helped. It was so so sad !
The OT showed her the first 3 heads, and asked if kp could carry on. She thought about it for another minute it........
kp:- (shaking her head)...... I don't get it
This test was shelved while kp had a few more tears.
We then took a tea-break. After the tea-break, kp's tactile sensations were tested.
kp put her hand in a covered box (so she couldn't see what was being given to her) and she had to feel what she had been given. The OT tested her dominant (right) hand first. She got 10 out of 10, feeling things like a cup, brillo pad, metal, glass, rubber, wool etc etc...
It was her left hand's turn. Things weren't quite so rosy but neither kp nor I thought she would be too hot at this one. She was given ......
a pair of scissors - Karen said it was "a fork"
a glove - Karen said it was a "washing up cloth"
a paperclip - Karen said it was a "twig"
Suffice to say, she didn't get any right, BUT she was able to laugh at how wrong she was which was good.
Actually, she did get one right, but not quite legitimately. She was feeling something for quite a while and by accident it slipped out of her side of the box (so she could see what it was). It was a cotton reel.
kp:- ermmm.....Cotton Reel
The OT looked impressed until kp put the cotton reel on top of the box with all the other objects.
We laughed for a while about that.
We then had a test which kp got 100% right !!!
It was about 6 pictures and she had to put them in an order that made sense. It was pilots walking to Concorde, it taxiing, taking off, cruising and landing (something like that).
So, things were looking up.
We then had some trickier tests. One involved rubber stamp blocks (plus ink). It was a MESSY test.
kp had about 10 different ink stamps on her left (all different shapes) and she was shown a diagram of a pattern that consisted of quite a few of those shapes and she had to recreate it with the rubber stamps on some blank paper. She was allowed to hold the rubber stamps over the shown pattern to work out if they were right or not.
For example, kp would be shown the following :-
And she would have to find the little triangle rubber stamp and the other rubber stamp for the bottom half.
kp really struggled with these. For example, in this one, she would eventually find the bottom part, but would pick the completely wrong size triangle for the top part. She got it on the 2nd or 3rd attempt however.
Halfway through this test, kp broke down again. She couldn't find the shapes she was looking for. It is SO heartbreaking looking on at her struggling so much. At times like this, I feel so much anger to the driver of the car that caused this accident.
The next test was a bit more fun. It was a bit like the game "Operation", where you have to get the bones out of the patient without letting the buzzer go off. Well, kp was given a stabbing device with a needle on the end and starting off with the largest hole, she had to place it into the hole WITHOUT touching the metal needle against the metal hole. The holes were numbered and got progressively harder until the needle ONLY just fits. She was allowed 3 attempts at each hole. She started off with her good hand and of the 30 holes, she completed 29 !!!! I was WELL impressed. I was looking on, thinking I could get to about 25, and kp would get about the same, and she nearly completed it and got all 30 !!!!
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
Then came the left hand. The left hand takes a lot longer, but although she had to use a lot more of her 3 lifelines per hole, she managed to get to hole 18 !! I would put money on the fact, that if Karen had been given this task 3 or 4 weeks ago, she would have only got to number 10 or so !!! I was well happy with 18 !
Then came the final test. Another bit of fun, but very frustrating for Karen. She had to make a coat hanger with a special machine and a set of instructions. She started off with a 1.5m piece of sturdy wire.
An example instruction would be .........
1. Move lever A so that it is positioned between the parallel lines.
kp struggled with this.
And an instruction like.....
11. Position the wire in front of the metal stopper so it falls between the runners on Lever C, then Pull Lever C until it reaches the metal stop..........
Well, kp had to break it down into 4 or 5 steps and then kept losing her place when she went back to the instructions.
With help, she got there in the end though. Here is kp working the final part of the coat hanger on the machine....
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
And here is the finished result.....
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
Karen and I have decided to have a bit of a laugh with the coat hanger and raise a few pence/pounds for charity in the process. If you would like to buy a coat hanger that Karen made herself, then please place your bid by adding a comment to this blog entry. Starting price is 50p. Increments of 50p only please. Auction ends Thursday 9th March at 7pm. The charity is "Marrow Transplant 2000" and it supports Haemotology patients in the UK. It's a charity that Marie and the family have supported since Lee's (Karen's nephew) death from Leukaemia (aged 18).
From 7pm tonight, you can also bid for the coat hanger on ebay by clicking HERE
The highest bid, between ebay and here wins.
We left physio with kp feeling very deflated. We went shopping at Sainsburys but kp just wanted to get home.
She went straight to bed.
Marie is staying tonight, so hopefully some chat with Marie will take kp's mind off today. A sad day.
A sad day today, or maybe it's just me.
Early start today, with kp getting up around 8.30am (that's early for kp). We had a visit to the OT today for "assessments". I think the OT realised the other week that kp wasn't 100% from a mental perspective and she rightly felt that this needs to be further assessed so the right treatment can be given. So today, kp had 11 assessments.
We had psyched ourselves up for 1 or 2 tests but not 11. All in all, we were there for about 2 hours.
I won't recall all the tests, but I will try and give a flavour of what kp went through.
Early on, there was a test where kp was presented with a series of strange shapes (on the left hand side of the table). She was then presented with a more complex shape which had (somewhere in it) one of the shapes she had on the left. She had to trace the easy shape within the complex diagram. It sounds complicated, but it wasn't as hard as it sounds. She got about 6 out of 10 right where most people would get them all. The other 4, she argued with the OT, that those shapes weren't present in the diagrams on the right at all. The OT showed her where they were.
kp:- oh yeah
She had a few more shape related ones, things like recreating the diagram you see on the left on a blank piece of paper on the right. Sounds easy, but for Karen (who doesn't see a lot of things if they are to the left), she missed out key parts of the diagrams and couldn't see that they were missing.
All the tests were timed, and they weren't considered over until Karen said she was finished.
An interesting result of one tests was that Karen was presented with 2 straight lines, one was a very short straight line, the other was long (going the full width of the paper). Karen had to mark where she thought the middle of each line was. I have marked in red where kp thought the middle of each line was.
Now, I thought it very strange how she nearly got the little one correct, but was so off on the big one. The OT went on to explain, that Karen doesn't see as long as line as we do. She misses a lot of the left hand side out, so that IS the middle from her point of view. I found this a little sad, but intriguing.
So, by this time, Karen probably had about 6 or 7 tests behind her, and had done "ok". She hadn't got everything right in a test (which a stroke-free person would have done), but she had got SOME right. So, I expect at this stage, kp was getting more than a little frustrated with the tests and herself. Then came the crunch test.
kp was presented with 10 cards, each had a picture of a face at a different angle. Imagine spinning someone round on a chair and taking 10 photos of their head as it turned round. Karen had to rearrange the cards so that they were in the correct order. In other words, they showed the head at all the different angles (in the right order) until the head had rotated 360'.
The assistant OT started the clock and kp just stared at the heads. 1 minute passed with the occasional furtive hand gesture as if she was going to rearrange them, but she didn't.
The OT stepped in at this point and reread the instructions.
Another 30 seconds passed, and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. And then the tears and upset came on full force.
kp:- I don't get it. I don't understand it at all.
Karen (pre-accident) would have walked this test and been shouting all the way through "Yes, YES, YESSS !", but instead she was demoralised and very upset.
I comforted her and tried to make her see that it wasn't that big a deal, but she then said :-
kp:- But, I know I could have done this before.
dp:- Yes, but the OT is going to show you tips for how you can get round this problem in the future
No words really helped. It was so so sad !
The OT showed her the first 3 heads, and asked if kp could carry on. She thought about it for another minute it........
kp:- (shaking her head)...... I don't get it
This test was shelved while kp had a few more tears.
We then took a tea-break. After the tea-break, kp's tactile sensations were tested.
kp put her hand in a covered box (so she couldn't see what was being given to her) and she had to feel what she had been given. The OT tested her dominant (right) hand first. She got 10 out of 10, feeling things like a cup, brillo pad, metal, glass, rubber, wool etc etc...
It was her left hand's turn. Things weren't quite so rosy but neither kp nor I thought she would be too hot at this one. She was given ......
a pair of scissors - Karen said it was "a fork"
a glove - Karen said it was a "washing up cloth"
a paperclip - Karen said it was a "twig"
Suffice to say, she didn't get any right, BUT she was able to laugh at how wrong she was which was good.
Actually, she did get one right, but not quite legitimately. She was feeling something for quite a while and by accident it slipped out of her side of the box (so she could see what it was). It was a cotton reel.
kp:- ermmm.....Cotton Reel
The OT looked impressed until kp put the cotton reel on top of the box with all the other objects.
We laughed for a while about that.
We then had a test which kp got 100% right !!!
It was about 6 pictures and she had to put them in an order that made sense. It was pilots walking to Concorde, it taxiing, taking off, cruising and landing (something like that).
So, things were looking up.
We then had some trickier tests. One involved rubber stamp blocks (plus ink). It was a MESSY test.
kp had about 10 different ink stamps on her left (all different shapes) and she was shown a diagram of a pattern that consisted of quite a few of those shapes and she had to recreate it with the rubber stamps on some blank paper. She was allowed to hold the rubber stamps over the shown pattern to work out if they were right or not.
For example, kp would be shown the following :-
And she would have to find the little triangle rubber stamp and the other rubber stamp for the bottom half.
kp really struggled with these. For example, in this one, she would eventually find the bottom part, but would pick the completely wrong size triangle for the top part. She got it on the 2nd or 3rd attempt however.
Halfway through this test, kp broke down again. She couldn't find the shapes she was looking for. It is SO heartbreaking looking on at her struggling so much. At times like this, I feel so much anger to the driver of the car that caused this accident.
The next test was a bit more fun. It was a bit like the game "Operation", where you have to get the bones out of the patient without letting the buzzer go off. Well, kp was given a stabbing device with a needle on the end and starting off with the largest hole, she had to place it into the hole WITHOUT touching the metal needle against the metal hole. The holes were numbered and got progressively harder until the needle ONLY just fits. She was allowed 3 attempts at each hole. She started off with her good hand and of the 30 holes, she completed 29 !!!! I was WELL impressed. I was looking on, thinking I could get to about 25, and kp would get about the same, and she nearly completed it and got all 30 !!!!
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
Then came the left hand. The left hand takes a lot longer, but although she had to use a lot more of her 3 lifelines per hole, she managed to get to hole 18 !! I would put money on the fact, that if Karen had been given this task 3 or 4 weeks ago, she would have only got to number 10 or so !!! I was well happy with 18 !
Then came the final test. Another bit of fun, but very frustrating for Karen. She had to make a coat hanger with a special machine and a set of instructions. She started off with a 1.5m piece of sturdy wire.
An example instruction would be .........
1. Move lever A so that it is positioned between the parallel lines.
kp struggled with this.
And an instruction like.....
11. Position the wire in front of the metal stopper so it falls between the runners on Lever C, then Pull Lever C until it reaches the metal stop..........
Well, kp had to break it down into 4 or 5 steps and then kept losing her place when she went back to the instructions.
With help, she got there in the end though. Here is kp working the final part of the coat hanger on the machine....
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
And here is the finished result.....
CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT
Karen and I have decided to have a bit of a laugh with the coat hanger and raise a few pence/pounds for charity in the process. If you would like to buy a coat hanger that Karen made herself, then please place your bid by adding a comment to this blog entry. Starting price is 50p. Increments of 50p only please. Auction ends Thursday 9th March at 7pm. The charity is "Marrow Transplant 2000" and it supports Haemotology patients in the UK. It's a charity that Marie and the family have supported since Lee's (Karen's nephew) death from Leukaemia (aged 18).
From 7pm tonight, you can also bid for the coat hanger on ebay by clicking HERE
The highest bid, between ebay and here wins.
We left physio with kp feeling very deflated. We went shopping at Sainsburys but kp just wanted to get home.
She went straight to bed.
Marie is staying tonight, so hopefully some chat with Marie will take kp's mind off today. A sad day.
posted by David Pollard at Monday, February 27, 2006
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