The next morning the physical therapist arrived and put me through my paces. The important exercises are designed to make me bend my knee as far as possible and the others stretch my hamstring and strengthen my quads -- the muscle above the knee. She is friendly and chatty but very strict about doing all the exercises with correct form.
She is very creative in setting up the exercises. The knee bends are done sitting down and dragging the foot back as far as possible. Due to the bed sore on my left foot I can't put much pressure on the foot. So she has me put a piece of wax paper under my foot so it slides easily. She measures flex, bend and extension with a giant foot-long protractor called a goniometer. I have noticed that all the orthopedic folks carry them around with them.In the afternoon the occupational therapist saw me and inspected the house for safety and disability issues. It seems the house is well laid out for my needs and she had only a few suggestions to make it more useful or safer. We spent a lot of time dealing with the bathroom and how to safely shower and use the raised potty chair that fits over the toilet. It appears that I have enough bend in my bad knee to use the facilities as they are and there's no need for the raised chair (which I really dislike a lot anyway).
The shower bench should wait a day or two so it's sponge baths for me for a while longer.
For dinner I lightly poached the shrimp Bill gave us and made us a shrimp salad.
Hey we use the smaller version of the goniometer in 6th grade geometry! :-)
ReplyDeleteThere's a finger and wrist size goniometer that's much smaller. My physical therapist has one in his shirt pocket.
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