Of Hoists and Seating
by Suhaila Usuludin ~ August 7th, 2008. Filed under: Geriatrics, Latest News, Neurorehabilitation, School, Technology, Work, Work Rehabilitation.Hi all!
It’s been 3 weeks of school. One thing I have to say is… there’s LOTS and LOTS of readings! Expected actually. I’m trying to keep up with weekly readings of all modules but it seems to be quite hard to do that. This is especially so for the Illness and Spirituality module. It takes a lot of focus for me to understand the articles. On the other hand, the rest are fine for me.
An interesting event/class that happened this week was the long-awaited 2nd and the final practical class in the independent living centre. We learnt more about hoists and seatings. I was more than willing to be the subject for the hoist session. I want to be hoisted, to know the feelings that my future patients may have. It’s quite scary as you don’t really know what to expect or what could happen, especially when my friend (BIRD) was the so-called therapist. Hehehe! Sorry, Bird. Well, this was better than the one in NYP. It was electrical and not hydraulic. Hydraulic hoists have jerky movements, which is not recommended for patients, especially those with high anxiety levels.
In seatings, we learnt more about ergonomics of dining, lounge and workplace chairs. Cool! I was fasinated by the ‘kneeling’ chair. I have yet to see one in Singapore. It’s good for people with low back pain as it relieves some of the tension in the spine. BUT it translates the pressure to the knees. Thus, this kind of chair is not suitable for long-term use.
Yup, that’s all for now. I’ll update if there’s more exciting stories in my life here in Melbourne. As usual, pictures are in the ‘Photos’ section or in my Facebook.
Till then!