So, who’s up for some bloodwork? Venipuncture, anyone? Finger prick, maybe? No..? Oh… Well, ok then. I’ll carry on. I know it may sound a bit crazy, but as a PT, I actually do some (very) minor blood work. I’m not trained as a nurse or phlebotomist or anything like that. Nope. Just some on-the-job-trainingContinue reading “PT/INRs: Helping Patients Manage their Anticoagulation”
Tag Archives: rehab
COVID-19: Where the Heck Are We?
I started this venture back in March in response to COVID-19. I saw many Physical Therapists and other rehab professionals shutting their doors because it wasn’t safe to keep them open. I saw an opportunity to improve our profession by addressing a deficit in practice: the lack of cardiopulmonary skill implementation. It wasn’t even thatContinue reading “COVID-19: Where the Heck Are We?”
Chronic Disease Part 2: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
This is part 2 in a multi-part series on the role of Rehab Providers in the management of chronic disease. Don’t forget to check out Part 1: Heart Failure! Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is a widely diagnosed disease of the lungs that includes the diagnoses of emphysema and chronic bronchitis. COPD can be caused byContinue reading “Chronic Disease Part 2: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)”
More Than Just A Respiratory Disease: The Tools You Need to Rehab COVID-19
Isn’t COVID-19 just a respiratory disease? If only that was true. We are good at treating respiratory infections. We have lots of drugs for viral, bacterial, parasitic, and fungal infections of the lungs. Most of them work really well! We also have several back-up treatments, inhaled medications, and adjuvant therapies (like rehab!) that make primaryContinue reading “More Than Just A Respiratory Disease: The Tools You Need to Rehab COVID-19”
Open Heart, Open Mind… Learning About Amio-Loading
I’m always learning something new. I called the cardiologist after an evaluation to report some severe orthostatic hypotension and the nurse and I got to talking. She was going back through the patient’s history and looking for why this may be happening. I had just finished assessing the patient in their home and they wereContinue reading “Open Heart, Open Mind… Learning About Amio-Loading”
ABGs (Part II)
So, now that you’ve read all the basics about ABGs in the first post, here is a little more about interpreting lab values and how to determine compensated conditions. This is where it gets fun! First off, let’s take a look at what NORMAL lab values probably look like: pH: 7.35-7.45 Partial pressure of oxygenContinue reading “ABGs (Part II)”
According to the Scientific Community, It’s Time for Change
If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been hinting at this for a while. In several posts over the past few months, there has been discussion amongst the medical community that has created controversy regarding the mode of transmission of COVID-19. Many providers of all disciplines have been very concerned about their contraction rates and that ofContinue reading “According to the Scientific Community, It’s Time for Change”
ABGs (Part 1)
This is the first post in a two-part series about understanding and interpreting arterial blood gases! If you want the rest of the post, you’ll have to check back next week! I’m getting real science-y again! So, just a heads up: my undergraduate degree was in chemistry. Kind of by accident, I took a lotContinue reading “ABGs (Part 1)”
The Duet Device
Have you seen an Acapella Duet before? This is another one of those things I wish I could hand out to maybe half of my patients. A Duet device is a special kind of Positive Expiratory Pressure (PEP) that provides resistive oscillatory pressure to exhalation which promotes increased lung volumes due to re-inflation of collapsedContinue reading “The Duet Device”
FEV1
I spent some really great times as an educator in a heart and lung transplant program at a large hospital system. Specifically, I was a therapy educator. I taught PTs, PTAs, OTs, COTAs, and SLPs what they needed to know to safely provide rehab to patient after heart and lung transplants. I saw so manyContinue reading “FEV1”
