09/17/2021
Today in my physical therapy world, I was reminded of an important life lesson.
As some of you may know, Parkinson’s is a progressive, neurological disease that can severely impact your mobility overtime. It really is very heartbreaking to see.
One of the issues that a patient can have is “freezing” or “festinating” episodes that can literally cause a person to stop in their tracks, slow them down, and highly increase their chance of falling.
What I’ve noticed working with these patients is that these episodes significantly increase or worsen when they are under stress, there are a lot of distractions around them, or/and when they are only focused on getting to the end destination (ie. getting to that chair to sit down). On top of that, Parkinson’s can also affect your cognitive processing, sometimes needing frequent reminders to perform a task accurately.
In this specific treatment, I found myself repeating “what is your first thought?”
While my patient was freezing, he said “to get to that chair!”
“Try again”
The pt then remembered and responded “take my first big step!” When he would remember to do that, he was successful everytime.
Long story short - I reminded myself of the importance of not focusing on the end goal, but focusing on my first step forward.
And let me tell ya, I really needed to hear that ♥️
