Today we saw a new patient that had an interesting surgery. She has had scoliosis for quite a while now, and opted out of getting the surgery when she was younger because it would have kept her in bed for a very long time; a much more significant time period than post-op now a days. Since she had such a drastic curve in her spine, she had two Harrington rods put in, which are stainless steel rods that are used to correct curvature of the spine or give stability to spinal fusion. The spine was wrapped in places with the two rods to straighten out, and while the spine is not completely straight, it has much less of a curve. After the surgery, the patient is put in a bed that holds them by the skull and has a circular thing around it so that the patient can be flipped from their back to their front. No the right scapula is causing the muscles to pull, causing the patient discomfort, and that is why she is at physical therapy. Just looking at her back, you notice a large bulge on one side of the back, so first it was ultrasounded and stimmed. Following, Diane did a stretch with the patient in which she pulls the head back, when she is laying on her back and then drops the head down and rotates it from side to side to work on range of motion. The patient is only able to do this 3 or 4 times.
There were a couple of other patients today, all of which I have mentioned before in my blog. Today was very interesting, and I hope I get to see more unique circumstances like today's in the last few days of my project.