Second week back

Second week at Uni

Coming off the back of a great weekend of doggy sitting, work and seeing my amazing boyfriend and sister, I had to return to uni. 

This week at uni has gone well. 

Mondays usually consist of a boring lecture and seminar. However, this week we learnt about stages of healing, which I find very interesting. 

The first stage of healing is bleeding. After trauma, the body’s first mechanism of defence is forming a blood clot (scab). Then comes the inflammation stage which is where the affected area starts to swell. 

Next comes the proliferation stage where the body starts to lay down collagen fibres to start to rebuild the tissues. 

After that comes the remodelling stage. This is where the collagen that was laid down gets realigned to form a stronger tissue. However an injured tissue will never be as strong as the original tissue. 

A practical based upon these was next in the day. We spent two hours applying the stages of healing to the stages of rehab (early, intermediate and late stages). 

Monday afternoon was spent writing an introduction and starting my main body of text to my literature review on rehabilitation programmes of rotator cuff tears. This is due in at the end of October. Which has given us 4 weeks to write it. 4!!!!!

Tuesday arrived and meant a lie in. I have one lecture on a Tuesday and it is about our clinical placement during second and third years. 

This lecture was based on professionalism and codes of conduct. As therapists we are taught never to go outside our scope of practise as we don’t know what we are doing. However a really harsh teacher did actually praise me in that lecture for having done some work and been really honest about it. Pretty proud of myself!!

Again the afternoon was spent doing my literature review. 

Tuesdays also mean volunteering. I volunteer my time up for women only fitness sessions as I grew up with no women’s cricket team for me to play in and I want to change that. 

Wednesday was a packed day, 9-4!

It started with an induction to the brand new built rehab suites that we get to use during our clinic placements. Planning a whole rehab session based on the stages of rehab is very hard. Clinically reasoning every step that you take. 

Next came a recap on performing warm up and cool downs for teams. 

As we are the first aiders for the sports teams at uni (I’m women’s basketball this year- the team my friend Jenna plays for). It is suggested that we have to take warm up and cool downs for our teams. 

Later that day came our first aid refresher course. 

3 hours of watching videos and trying to remember all the first aid we were taught last year. It was difficult as first aid changes through different jobs. Lifeguards have one lot of first aid to learn and it turns out sports therapists do too!!

Wednesdays from now until Christmas are now used for clinic. We get our own patients and we are suddenly thrown in to the deep end with treating them. I start my  first clinic rotation next week!

Thursday was a good day. 

Starting with a lie in... again!!

The lecture was quite fun. We always play a quiz on our phones in the lecture which I got 9/10 in! Followed by a practical going through all the special tests of the lower limb. I remember them pretty well which is good. 

We looked at how they were reliable. Papers gave the tests a score on sensitivity which means the proportion of people who test positive for it and actually have the pathology. 

And specificity which means the proportion of people who test negitive for the it and do not have the pathology. 

We went through all the hip special tests. Which are:

True / apparent leg length which test the length of the tibia and femur

Thomas test which tests for tight rectus femoris hip abductors and illiopsoas, obers test which tests for tight tensor fascia latae,

Faber test which tests for intraarticulate pathologies

Trebdelenburg which tests for a weakness in hip abductors and gluteal weakness 

The adductor squeeze tests for adductor weakness. 

Knee special tests are:

Anterior drawer which tests the integrity of the anterior cruciate ligament. 

Posterior draw which tests integrity of posterior cruciate ligament

Posterior sag which tests for PCL 

Lachmanns which tests ACL

Valgus and Varus stress tests test the MCL and LCL

Patella tap which tests for oedema

Milking which tests for oedema

Mcmurrays which tests for meniscus tears

Apleys grind which tests for meniscus tear

Thessaly which tests for meniscus tear 

Ankle tests which are:

Anterior draw which tests ATFL integrity

Talar tilt which tests medial and lateral ligaments

Thompson’s test which tests for Achilles’ tendon rupture 

Ottowa ankle rules say if there is pain on lateral or medial malleoli and can’t weight bare get an ankle x Ray 

If there is pain on base of the 5th metatarsal and navicular and can’t weight bare get a foot x Ray. 

Squeeze syndesmosis tests for syndesmosis

Kleigers tests for syndesmosis

Homans tests for deep vein thrombosis, neurogenic pain and bakers cyst. 

Friday arrived and I was glad I would be going home. 

Starting a lecture at 11, we learnt about ankle sprains. Which is fab for me as I am doing my kinesiology case study on ATFL sprain. 

 Learning how ankle sprains happen (plantar flexion and inversion simultaneously) and what risk factors cause it (muscle imbalance, proprioception, BMI, ATFL being the weakest of the ligaments in the ankle)

In the practical, we went through tests which can show if there is a risk factor for injury. 

I found out I have a high risk of getting an ankle sprain as I can only reach the wall with my knee when my foot is 2cm away from the wall. (The normal is 10!!)

This week has been ok. I have enjoyed what I have learnt but boy am I glad to get home!!