Clinical Conditions Class, Essay Example

The patient is a Caucasian male, who is roughly in his mid-to late twenties. The individual has brownish hair and is quite thin overall.  In the video, he is initially wearing a t-shirt, exercise pants, and socks- later in the video he will remove his shirt in order to do more strenuous exercise.  At the beginning of the video, the patient is pictured on an elevated mat doing trunk exercise by which he tries to move to both sides- right and left- via a number of contortions.  The elevated mat appears to be part of a larger exercise or therapeutic facility devoted to rehabilitation.  As the man exercises, there are a number of other individuals watching him as he proceeds to stretch and perform other flexibility exercises. The man, at least in the beginning, is doing those exercises alone.  At roughly 1:50 in the video, the patient takes off his t-shirt and begins doing a series of strenuous exercises aimed at increasing flexibility in the legs.  Indeed, the patient also begins to perform tasks that build dexterity and mechanical motion such as the removal and putting on of his socks. Towards the end of the session, roughly around the five minute forty second mark, a therapeutic assistant (a female) enters the scene in order to help the individual stretch further.

After the sock exercise, the patient moves to the end of the mat and attempts to pick up his shoes repeatedly in order to build strength and flexibility in those areas.  Once he has successfully picked up the shoes, he tries more demanding tasks such as lacing and unlacing the shoes repeatedly. The patient also attempts to take off the t-shirt, and then uses the t-shirt as a prop by which to conduct various exercises aimed at increasing mobility in the individual.  At the end, the patient pulls himself up to the mat, and attempts a series of measures to pull himself up on the mat (push ups), this is where the video ends.

The patient in the video is a quadriplegic, an illness that results in paralysis caused by illness and injury to the brain or spine.  It looks as if in the case of this individual, while he has relative mobility in the upper torso, there is a loss of function and mobility in the trunk and lower torso. However, as a result of this condition, the patient is immobile in a number of areas including below the waist and there is no little or no mobility with the patient’s legs.  The patient, however, seems to have mobility in the arms and moves quite flexibly around the trunk. The main goals of treatment regarding this patient include increasing mobility and making the patient more comfortable, overall.  The three treatments used for this patient could include the following: 1) strengthening existing musculature through controlled and observed motion- that is, the purpose of this strategy is to improve mobility in existing muscles that will allow the patient to leverage existing strength to increase musculature.  2) Range of motion- this strategy, which was also shown in the video, is built upon increasing the individual’s range of motion, particularly in the arms and in the trunk-based area.  3) Functional activities training- this strategy aims at helping the individual attaining the ability to independently engage in activities that are necessary for everyday life including tying shoes, the removal of socks, and dressing (undressing).  Overall, the video showed some of these activities (although in a limited nature), they would likely be able to improve the individual’s lose of mobility and function in everyday life.