The Power of Encouragement/Motivation

Hey there friends and colleagues, hope you’ve all had a friendly and inviting first week of clinic. I’m currently at Charlies in neurology with 3 other lovely people. One thing that has become particularly evident to me over the last week is the incredibly important role of encouragement and movitation in dealing and communicating successfully with patients in this area. I understand that this is necessary with patients in all areas but for many of the patients on my ward, their worlds have been totally turned upside down and they have gone from active, independent individuals looking after others, to completely dependent on people for their most basic needs. As you can image (although, I’m not sure we fully can unless you’ve experienced it), this is very depressing and degrading and many patients lose hope. One of my patients was a very independent and active lady before her stroke in December, and now she cannot stand independently, her speech is dysarthric and she is at the mercy of others for all her ADL’s. In working with her she is often expressing that there’s no point in trying and that she doesn’t care anymore which poses an additional challenge to her rehab. I have been amazed at the difference some genuine encouragement and positive reinforcement has made with her. You can see in her face the flicker of hope when you say how well she’s doing and she asks, “Really?” The role of motivator cannot be underestimated when working with patients, and I guess in general the degree of impairment tends to correlate with the level of encouragement/motivation needed to an extent. So go for it guys!!