Question
What is your best strategy of engaging patients?
Answer
That is a fantastic question because this happens. I spoke about the patient who lost both of his arms and I took him to the baseball game. The back story on that is when I first went into his room, he was very down and depressed. Obviously, he is a 19-year-old kid, who had lost both of his arms. What do I do? I will say the answer for me is to understand who the patient is. You need to build that rapport right away.
If you approach that person as, “Okay, hey, person who lost their arms, we are going to get you to do all these things,” I think you have missed the bus. What you need to do is approach that person as, “Hey, tell me about yourself. Who are you?” I think once you start really taking an interest in a person individually then you figure out right away, this is who I need to be. I talk about being a chameleon as a therapist, meaning you need to figure out how to be the therapist that they need you to be.
I have had patients come in who are hardcore infantry guys. A lot of times I will have to say, “All right, screw it, let’s do it.” We curse along with each other and we figure out how to be engaging with each other and it is hard-nose therapy. Sometimes, I will have a family that comes in that is very passive and quiet and conservative, maybe a spiritual or religious family. We will sit back and this is something that we need to pray about. So, let’s take it a day at a time and we will look at those opportunities for success and we will take that. A lot of times it is about who does the patient need you to be, and that is who I become. With Bart, the patient from the baseball game, right away I found out he was big baseball fan. I talk leisure interests all the time with patients and I figure out right away what is it you like to do? Are you a gamer? Do you like video games? Do you like sports? Do you like woodwork? Do you like using your hands? Do you like television? What is it?
I like a lot of these things personally, so I always want to make sure that I could have that conversation with him. This guy in particular said, “I like baseball,” so I replied, “I love baseball too.” I asked, “Who is your team?” So we started talking about teams, and then I started seeing life in him, “Oh yeah, man, I’m a huge Cubs fan." I then replied, “Oh, man, I’m a Dodgers fan. Ah, the Cubs are looking good this year and so and so is pitching really well," etc. All of a sudden they forget really quick about their injuries. It quickly turns to, "I have my mind and I can engage with you about basebeal." I think that is really strong and important. Once you establish that rapport, all of a sudden you have gotten into that deeper place where you recognize they are a person and not just an injury.
My strategy is to find out what activity is going to be important for that person and get them engaged in doing that activity with whatever adaptations necessary. Also, I do a lot of research to find out the different ways of completing an activity and we go from there.
