Today was my last day at Duke Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine, and it was the longest. I started my morning at 8:00am with Ashley and saw around 4 patients. 3 of the patients were in the Joint Health Program (JHP). The program was created by the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the Department of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy to try and find a better way to treat osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, which is hard to treat and comes with a lot of pain in the joints. Ashley is the only one in the clinic who does JHP, so she sees a number of patients in the program. It focuses on education about pain management, nutrition, sleep, stress management, exercise, and general lifestyle changes that can be made to better manage the pain. One big focus is making a change from overexerting yourself by doing a bunch of an activity until you’re in pain, and then taking a prolonged break. It’s better to break an activity into manageable time chunks and take breaks in between, and it makes you more productive since there will be less rest time overall due to pain. I saw a couple patients with Tyler today, one of which had a period of time in college where she was aspiring to become a doctor. Tyler took the opportunity to start quizzing me, one of the college interns, and the patient about anatomy. Needless to say, we have some brushing up to do on our anatomy knowledge. The rest of the day was just spent seeing more patients and observing various exercises until 5:45. I’ve had a great 7 days at Duke Physical Therapy!
