Unit 4: PHYSIOTHERAPY & NURSING

Physiotherapists use physical approaches to improve peoples health. This may involve:

• Teaching people exercises to get damaged joints and muscles moving again or reduce pain.
• Giving exercise or fitness classes.
• Teaching people to walk using a walking stick, frame or crutches.
• Giving joint manipulations or massage.
• Using electrotherapy machines such as ultrasound to treat people with injuries.
• Helping people to breathe and cough more effectively.
• Advising and educating people about activity levels or about their condition.
• Advising and discussing patient care with other health professionals.

Those physiotherapists who work in hospitals work either on the wards or in the physiotherapy department, or both. They go to each ward in turn and discuss new patients with the nurses and medical staff. They then go around and treat their patients, sometimes on the ward and sometimes taking them to the physiotherapy department. Other hospital physiotherapists work in the Physiotherapy department with ëoutpatientsí. They usually see one patient every half an hour. These patients have a variety of problems such as back, neck or knee pain, ankle or hand injuries, fractures, and arthritis. A typical day may involve a mixture of patients from children to the elderly. Physiotherapy is a "hands on", physical career in every sense. The personal qualities needed for this rewarding role are tolerance, patience and compassion, you will also need to be levelheaded, practical and have good communication skills.

Apart from working with sportsmen and sportswomen to improve their technique, maintain fitness or help them to get fit after an injury, physiotherapists treat people who are not athletes for a variety of other conditions. They treat back pain using manipulations, traction or exercise, and teach people to improve their posture and muscle strength to avoid back pain in the future. What is not so well known is that physiotherapists help patients in burn units of hospitals to keep moving their joints and muscles after major burns, and may also work with people who have cancer, helping them to move independently for as long as possible. They may work with people with lung ailments like asthma and bronchitis, or teach patients with arthritis to control their pain and keep moving. People with fractures learn how to cope when they are in a splint or cast, and how to get moving again once a broken bone has healed. Patients who have torn a ligament also learn how to prevent damage to the ligament in the future. Surprisingly, physiotherapists sometimes even work in mental health care, helping patients to keep active and gain the benefits of exercise on their mood and emotions, and they teach people who have had a heart attack to exercise again, in order to prevent another heart attack.

Blind or partially sighted people in many parts of the world often study to be physiotherapists. The requirements for access to a course vary from country to country, but in Britain, most courses are in universities and take three or four years of full time study. You are expected to do a large amount of study in your own time and a number of clinical placements. To apply for a physiotherapy programme you need to have done academic work in the previous four years to show that you have the ability to study to an appropriate level. Each university has slightly different requirements so it is a good idea to talk to the Admissions Tutor at various institutions before you apply. There are no longer any special courses catering specifically for students with visual impairment and you can apply to any university offering this programme. The Royal National Institute for the Blind offers a Physiotherapy Support Service (PSS) in the UK for blind and partially sighted people thinking about a career in physiotherapy.

Very few professions today offer such a range of specialities and career paths as nursing, but it involves hard work and demands commitment. What a qualified nurse focuses on is the patient, not simply the condition he or she may be suffering from but the needs and anxieties it may generate, including the pressures on family and friends. The place you work in may be a hospital ward or clinic. The area you specialise in could be intensive care, theatre and recovery, cancer care or care of older people, or it could be visiting people at home or attached to a local health centre. What makes nursing such a challenge is the diversity of situations you will have to respond to. The patients you will be working with may be old or young, with chronic illnesses or acute illnesses and injuries. The team you will be part of includes doctors, physiotherapists, anaesthetists, pharmacists, dieticians and others. It is a demanding job with serious responsibilities. In return, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you make a real difference in reducing suffering and promoting the health of people in your care.

Blind Student Enters Nursing Program

Melissa Resnick has been blind since birth. She has always dreamed of becoming a nurse, and now with the help of the National Federation of the Blind she will have her chance at Nassau Community College in Garden City, N.Y.

Marc Maurer, President of NFB, hopes that Ms. Resnick will inspire other young blind men and women to aspire to become nurses. The NFB helped Ms. Resnick by providing information on how other non-sighted individuals have used alternative measures and techniques to complete their medical or other healthcare studies. Nassau considered their reports and admitted Ms. Resnick. She began her studies in January 2005.

Melissa already holds a Bachelor's Degree in biology from the State University of New York at Albany. Although the university tried to discourage her from such a program because of her sight issues, Melissa proved she could not only succeed, but she graduated with honors. She went on to obtain her Master's degree in biopsychology for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Now she will pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. "It has been my lifelong dream to become a nurse and I have worked very hard to get here," said Melissa Resnick. "I purposely took difficult courses in school and volunteered at a hospital just to be overqualified for nursing school. I am confident that I will succeed and I thank Nassau Community College for giving me this opportunity."

The School of Nursing offers approximately 350 places a year in the specialities of adult, child, learning disability and mental health nursing. The School is multi-sited and has teaching facilities in all the district general hospitals it uses for practical experience, so that while some of the academic components of your nursing programme are based in the school's central facilities, you will also be able to follow your studies closer to where you undertake your practice.

The current Diploma programme is full-time (45 weeks per year), organised over three years with almost equal hours spent in theoretical study and on practical experience. The first eighteen months is common to all students. This is followed by specialisation in your chosen branch of nursing. You are allowed two attempts to achieve the required standard of theory and of practice in each module. On successful completion of the programme, you will be eligible to register as a nurse and will be awarded the Diploma in Higher Education (Nursing Studies). Entry Requirements: Please contact the College for details.