Week 3: Visits, chats and projects

It’s come to the end of week 3 of my physio placement with Sport for Confidence (SfC). Like the first two weeks, my days have been a mixture of virtual work and visiting local leisure centres. 

Monday: team meeting and getting on track with projects

Monday was a virtual day where I did some research for the project that I’m doing with Gab and Alana. Looking back at the beginning of the week, I think we were still a bit confused as to what the finished product should look like. We had a chat with Jo (our supervisor at Essex Uni) who suggested that we speak to Liz to clarify what we need to do by the end of the placement. She recommended that we draw up a GANTT chart or something similar, to make sure that the three of us know what we’re doing and when. I'm not exaggerating when I say that GANTT charts strike fear into my very soul, but the idea of coming up with a weekly plan and dividing tasks between us is a good one. I think if I was to tackle a group project again, I would make sure that we’re crystal clear in knowing what we need to do early on, so that we can plan our time, divide tasks out each week and meet at the end of the week to check that we’re all managing okay with our tasks.

Tuesday: social chat and Zoom chat with Lucy

Tuesday was another virtual day. I was a bit worried that I would lose focus, but it turned out to be a useful day. We joined a social Zoom chat with Sophie (OT), Charlie (OT assistant) and one of the regular SfC participants. The chat was quite structured, which I thought worked well, because it gave everyone a chance to contribute. We also had a chat with Lucy, one of the OT's who works in Canvey. It was interesting to hear about the differences in demographics in each area. Lucy was open to the idea of physios working for SfC, which is one of the things we're investigating on the placement.

Wednesday: Colchester

We spent Wednesday at Colchester leisure world. We're getting to know the staff and some of the regular participants. I was happy to see some of the regulars approaching us and initiating conversations. This will be good for practising their social skills. In terms of physio intervention, Gab & I helped a participant in the gym. He's a wheelchair user who recently fractured two ribs. We came up with modified exercises to work his upper body muscles without putting pressure on his ribs. The last thing we wanted was for him to be in agony! I feel we put our physiotherapy skills to good use here.

Source: Pixabay

We also designed and led the warm-ups for boccia and football. Leading the warm-up gave both of us confidence, and it was also a great opportunity for us to put our physio skills into practice. The coach, Toby, appreciated us doing the warm-ups and the participants seemed to enjoy the difference.

One of the participants, who I have developed a good rapport with over the last 2-3 weeks, came in complaining of pain on the inside of his foot. There was another participant last week who told us his arm hurt when he swam, but we found that group exercises appeared to distract him from the pain. I carried out a brief assessment with the participant who had foot pain - essentially to rule out red flags. I was satisfied that his pain didn't indicate anything serious so I encouraged him to take part in the sports, but to take breaks if he needed to. He said his pain was no worse at the end of the session. I will use that experience to think about how to assess people with pain in the future.

We finished the day with a football session, which involved a series of drills in small groups followed by short football matches. After the football session, one of the participants said that he felt excluded from the game because other people were not passing to him. My observations were that everyone was included, but in future I will make sure that I try to pass the ball to the less confident players to give them a chance.

Click here to read part 2 of my weekly blog entry