For journal 12 of the Fall 2018 semester, I have pick a treatment used for a injury and explain why I chose that specific treatment. An equine athlete came in complaining of back pain. My eval lead me to believe that she had tight musculature at her upper back (rhomboids, upper traps, and paraspinals). So her pain was not too severe and her back was not too tight yet. I had a choice of manual message, cupping or scraping for initial treatments. The spasms were more deep and not very big which made me pick the manual massage treatment. I chose manual massage because I wanted to make sure that the spasms would be effectively reached. If I was to use suction I feel like I would not be attacking the issue as well because the spasms were so small. Using my hands I could make sure all the spasms would be treated. If I would have picked to scrape her back I feel that I would not have good control of the pressure being applied. With my hands I could easily gauge how much pressure I was putting on her. Manual therapy to me is a really effective tool that is underutilized. I like to really feel what I am doing with my own sense of feel. I clarified my treatment first with Chaypin and explained my reasoning as to why. She agreed with my thoughts as to why I chose manual massage. Being able to make the decision for treatments of athletes is very fun and exciting. I get to figure out what kind of treatments might be best for athletes because no one heals the same. It is like problem with multiple ways to figure out the solution, but deciding which one works best is the hard part that I like going through.
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For the five domains in AT, I feel most confident in evaluation of injuries and emergency care. I feel like those have been drilled in my head over and over again. It also helps that the first two years in the program have been based around these two. I don’t know which I am more confident in as of right now because I haven’t really been studying them as much as I would like due to the two biology classes I am taking. They have really taken a lot of my time up this semester, but in the clinic whenever I am doing evals or any kind of emergency situation I never feel like I don’t know what to do. I think going over situations with Melissa have benefited me very much. When an injury occurs, I think of how the athlete could have been injured worse and go through what action is needed to do. The worst domain for me is budget part mainly because we haven’t finished learning this part. I feel like I still am not where I need to be right now. I want to start reviewing this area. I believe if I go over the types budgets then I will be able to put everything together. I could do mini mock budget for a couple of items that I would need in a clinic with my preceptor or teacher. The feedback on my budget would benefit me in the long run. I also want to go over rehab/strengthening programs so I understand the phases of the rehab process. Transitioning to another phase is hardest part because there is no set time limit for each phase. I want to better understand when I can progress to the next phase because returning to participation is huge part this career. This will help me with studying for the final in clinical, the BOC, and if I will have to create a budget where I work at.
For this journal I am supposed to talk about how I have been meeting one of my goals I set for myself this semester. I think the one that I have done the best with is my evaluation testing. I wanted to become better at eval by checking functional movements for the athlete and strength testing. I understand the concepts behind them, I just never really used them to help with my decision. I usually just got the history, palpation, and some special tests and called it a day. I still used strength testing and functional movements but not how I should have. I took it upon myself to test the athlete’s function of musculature whenever I was doing an eval. I have became pretty decent with it now but it is still not where it needs to be. I started to improve my functional testing by asking the athletes to perform simple everyday tasks (walking, squatting, throw a ball, etc.). At the beginning of the year it was easy to practice because I had a ton of injuries to eval (preseason) but as the semester has gone on The first eval that I did functional testing was for a wrist. I tested grip strength, made sure he could go through ROM, and asked about daily problems he was having from the injury. It didn’t occur to me at the time to ask about how writing was for him. I eventually did and found out that it was just a little painful. It really didn’t tell me much but I did rule the muscles for the thumb which is important. I understand the testing I am doing will not always show me what the problem is, but it is helping me with seeing what the limitations are. I can better understand what exactly is bothering them which will help me understand what the athlete needs to work on to get back to normal.My clinical experience this semester has been awesome. I have been fortunate enough to be with Melissa and I can honestly say I have definitely improved my abilities as an ATS. I have been able to evaluate injuries the moment it happens, making decisions for treatments to help the athlete recover and learning more about the legal aspect of the job. I believe that my confidence in my abilities has increased dramatically again and my knowledge about how the body works has helped. Being able to explain how everything to athletes as they are in rehab or just getting treatment is one of my favorite parts. It also helps me study at the same time. My favorite experience so far was actually this past week. An athlete went down during practice, then Melissa just asked a couple of questions and gave it to me. As I went through the eval I was never once nervous about what I was doing, and after I asked how I did she told me that I did what I needed to do. I’m pretty sure that Melissa trust me and my abilities as an AT to the point where she just expects that I know what I am doing (at least I think so). It is so fun actually being able to make the decisions for athletes. Obviously everything has to be ran by Melissa first, but I have yet to be told my ideas/treatments for the athletes. This past week I got to set up the gym for the basketball scrimmage, and I killed it yet again. I think the reason why I take being at the clinic serious more serious than class because I just enjoy being at the clinic more. This has been one of my best clinical placements I’ve had yet and I am going to be bummed when next semester comes. I need to start reviewing my injuries and medical conditions that I will need to know for this upcoming exit. Melissa has been kind enough to help me with that as well.
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April 2019
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