Thursday, December 27, 2012 - Knowledge is Power

Marc was in good spirits when I arrived this morning.  I turned around to get him something and when I turned back to his bed, this is what I found:

He had sat himself up at the edge of the bed.  While I was very impressed, I was also worried. 

“Are you allowed to do that on your own?” I asked. 

“The nurses helped me sit here this morning to eat my breakfast,” he said. 

His physiotherapists arrived just after that and I mentioned that he had sat up at the edge of his bed by himself.  Busted.  They confirmed my suspicions that this was definitely not okay.  They explained to Marc that he needs to learn the word “whoa”.  Just because he thinks he should be doing something and just because he can do something, he needs to think, “Whoa, this could hurt me if I don’t have someone there to help me." 

Physio put him through an assessment and then got him into a chair. Off we went for an OT assessment.  While physiotherapy works on large muscle movement and focuses on the mobility of the patient, occupational therapy focuses on function and the fine motor skills needed to perform daily tasks. 

I sat in on the OT assessment and found it quite fascinating and insightful.  One of the tasks required Marc to copy a picture of a flower.  He drew the right side of the flower only.  He did this twice.  It was clear that he simply did not see the left side of the picture and therefore couldn’t reproduce that side.  I now understood his difficulty with telling time on the left side of the wall clock yesterday. 

When I went home tonight, I Googled the terms that I’d heard the therapists say today while assessing Marc.  The first one, hemispatial neglect described Marc’s difficulty with seeing things on the left side of his food tray.  He was unaware that anything was there. 

The second one, hemianopsia, explained decreased vision in one half of one or both eyes.  The picture in the link of left homonymous hemianopsia showed what I believe is happening to Marc.  Unless I’m mistaken, he is actually seeing half a picture.  No wonder he drew half a flower!  That was what his brain is telling him is before him. 

Clearly I need to research this more in order to be able to really help Marc through this challenge.  The occupational therapist recommended a book called “Left Neglected” by Lisa Genova.  It’s about a woman who suffered a right brain injury in a car accident and it follows her healing journey from her perspective.  I’ll be visiting Chapters as soon as I can to pick up a copy. 

Knowledge is power.