Day 2

An interesting thing that happened today was that I got to do a six minute walk test on a new resident. Firstly I took her HR and BP (initially by hand and manual BP pump + stethoscope and then with the battery BP machine to compare results - I was pretty much spot on!). This patient's BP was always at 66 due to her pacemaker.

The 6mwt was only a test we talked about during gero lectures this sem so it was pretty awesome to be actually doing it. I explained to the patient that we were doing a test to monitor her fitness by seeing how far she could walk in 6 minutes. She was allowed to sit down or stop walking during this time but the clock would still be ticking. I explained that after her Rx plan was organised and had commenced we would be doing this test again to see if her fitness was improving during and after weeks of Rx. 

She began her test at one end of the corridor with myself walking next to her measuring how far she walked with a measuring tool that i pushed and it recorded distance. She walked quite slowly that I believe the average patient would and completed 150m in 6 minutes. This score is not comparable to a norm as its the patients own PB which will be compared to later results.

April and I then started doing a Berg Balance test with her which we didn't complete as April thinks its best to break it up into parts as to not tire the patients out too much and therefore get optimum results.

I really enjoyed actually doing this test today as it feels like actual physio. Stupid as that sounds. But I would like to do more hands on work like that again.