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Home-Health PT vs Outpatient PT
I’ve been talking a lot about hospital stays and home scheduling this week, but here’s another question:
Do you prefer Home-Health or outpatient physical therapy?
I was supposed to be getting PT at home three days a week because I’m so weak right now (something I don’t even like to type out), but I am requesting to be “discharged” until I can do outpatient a few weeks from now.
Since I’m recovering from back surgery, I’m not allowed to do exercises, I’m just supposed to walk… a LOT. The goal is to strengthen my legs while I wait for it be safe to do more. I don’t need anyone to help remind me to walk, but I WILL need someone to help me rebuild my core and trunk strength (appropriately) further down the road. So taking the COVID risk of having someone come to our house multiple times a week seemed… Unneccessary?
Additionally, HomeHealth wasn’t able to tell us when they’d come for PT (they could tell us the day but not the time). So since I have two kids at home amid a pandemic- full time homeschooling and needing to focus – that’s a recipe for disaster. What if they showed up when I was on a Telehealth appointment elsewhere? What if my daughter was having a meltdown? We have a small house with “no place to hide”, so interruption would happen. But, more importantly, I need my partner to ASL interpret what’s being said if wearing masks, and he’s gone almost all of the working day right now. Tricky, right?
All of the above and more combined to make me wary of thrice-weekly PT. I am currently requesting once-per-week outpatient PT in a month or so. I much prefer “checking in” with someone, getting my assigned movements, and then doing them the rest of the week at home, in my own time.
What about you?
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1 Reply
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Absolutely, Home PT only for me – but by this I mean self-PT at home. Especially in these covid circumstances. I think you might be perfectly capable to do the exercises yourself, once virtually instructed. I would not even go for instruction to the hospital or a PT practice, I would watch (subtitled) instruction videos instead and read about it to find the appropriate exercises. Most important is listen to your body and don’t over-do anything.
Timing is very important – doing the PT when you are well rested and undisturbed; not doing it when and because it is only convenient for the instructor.The way covid is going sky-high these days again (at least here in Europe) chances are that in a few days or weeks this kind of healthcare will be scaled down or stopped altogether due to the infection risk and / or lack of medical staff. And then you will have to do it yourself anyway.
At the moment, we don’t want any outsiders to enter our house unless absolutely necessary and then only for the shortest of time. So for instance our GP came in last week with two flu shots (one for each of us), she wore gloves and a mask and so did we. I checked in the kitchen with the nebulizer for how the air flow was with the ventilation set on turbo, and she delivered the shots right there between the sink and the oven. She was in and out the house in 2 minutes. Yesterday the dog needed her 2-months barbershop treatment, the dog trimmer came in and walked right through out again to the loggia and did her job perfectly well in the open air, wearing gloves and mask. I think in December when things are probably even more risky covid-wise, we will do the trimming ourselves.
These are the two only people to enter the house since December 2019.So be careful, and every time something risky seems needed, ask yourself: is this absolutely necessary or can it wait or be done in another way. If it needs to be done, how to do it in the safest way possible. Turns out most things can wait and we are rather creative in adapting standard situations into safer ones. Don’t feel silly for asking what you want and how you want it. Follow your intuition.
Keep up the walking. Hope you feel stronger soon!
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