Mayson’s senior project

 May 24, 2022 Last day of senior project! Today I finished my paper and my presentation. I am really happy with how both came out and I also have some posters that I have borrowed from Diane to use at express fest! I finished off with 60 hours and 55 mins! I have reached the goal and I am excited to present what I have learned from my experience! Total hours: 60 hours 55 mins 

 May 23, 2022 Today was my last day at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy. First off want to say thank you for the opportunity to work there and meet so many amazing people. Diane, Ben, and Tom were amazing mentors and have truly sparked my interest in PT in the future. Overall, this experience has been fascinating and I was very lucky to have chosen this as my senior project. Although the senior project has come to an end, I will be continuing some work this summer with Diane on her research project which I am very excited about! Today I did the finishing touches on my paper and my presentation for express fest! Daily hours: 5 hours 10 mins  Total hours: 55 hours 45 mins 

 May 22, 2022 The second week of senior project has ended! This week, I worked with some new patients, tested my PT  knowledge, and read some fascinating articles on ACL injuries in adolescent ski racers. I checked off my  goal for this week which was to give my blogs more visual content. I was able to take a few pictures of an  ACL and meniscus reconstruction, a fractured spiral tibia, and a fractured fibula. I have also been  observing how PT professionals deal with patients who come in with an injury that has been ongoing and  has gone from acute to chronic because they didn't think that their condition/conditions were that bad  until it came to that point. It can be very frustrating for PTs to do their job when patients come in with  multiple issues before healing from one. Although their job is to fix people, they are not fairy godmothers.  The physical therapists at Ragged Mountain Physical Therapy, do their job to the finest and they d...

 May 21, 2022 Today I continued to work on my presentation and paper. RMPT was closed today so along with doing some work, I had a cookout with my tennis team and spent some time with my friends on my last weekend at Proctor. I am going to continue working on my presentation and paper this weekend for the express fest on Wednesday. Diane has given me some posters that show the muscles and bones of the shoulder and back muscles that I am going to use as props for the presentation to show what I focused on during my senior project.  Daily hours: 2 hours  Total hours: 47 hours 5 mins 

 May 20, 2022  Day 12! Started work at 9 this morning and saw a few usual patients. Today I was able to feel my one patient's patella, where he is currently working on decreasing the tightness below his knee. It was actually very interesting to see how the PT handled the knee after a 4-week post-op ACL and meniscus surgery. You have to be a little aggressive with massaging the area to make sure the knee doesn't get too tight and you are able to start using those muscles again. I also took a small shoulder quiz that Diane had given me since we have been focusing a lot on the shoulder and shoulder exercises. I was able to give many of my patients today specific exercises that would benefit them so it was a good test to see how much I know based off of what the PT was asking of me. I have also figured out what props I will be able to bring to express fest to show what I have learned and what I focused on in PT along with my slideshow. I ended off my day with playing tennis with m...

 May 19, 2022  Day 11! This morning I got into work around 9 and saw a regular patient who I hadn't seen since last week and was progressing very well. I was able to give him an exercise to help with elbow flexion and to start working the muscles of the biceps since he had injured the shoulder and bicep muscles. It was really awesome to see him crush the exercises that last week he was not able to perform. There was also a husband and wife couple who came in who I always love to see and always make me laugh! Another patient came in today who suffered from a tibia spiral fracture and fibula fracture. His x-ray photos are shown down below where the fracture was for the tibia and where the screws were put in for the fibula fracture. He is currently on crutches now but is working hard in PT to hopefully not be able to use the crutches within the next week! Tonight I have some studying to do for a simple shoulder quiz tomorrow that Diane will be giving me. We have focused a lot on ...

 May 18, 2022 Today I had the day off from work so I started my morning off with a workout and then worked on my project for the express fest. Today was my last tennis match with my team and we ended with a great win! I am so happy to have been with this group of girls and to have Mel as our outstanding coach!  Tomorrow I return back into PT and get back to work! I have started a slideshow to use as my presentation and then I will brainstorm what props I can bring in to show what I have been learning. I will also make little pamphlets that lay out each PT exercise that you can do for each part of your body. For example, if you experience back pain, do these exercises (cat/cow, knee to chest).  Daily hours: 2 hours  Total hours: 34 hours 40 mins 

May 17, 2022  Day 9 of senior project! I started off my morning by seeing some regulars who came in and seeing how far they have come in their recovery stage. Not a whole lot of new people came in today, so it was nice to catch up with some patients and chat with them! After I came back from lunch, I jumped right back in and observed dry needling technique on a patient who did not have a diagnosis yet because it was hard to tell where the patient's pain was coming from. Although, she did complain of having pain in the hamstring/glute area which can be derived from pain in the SI (sacroiliac joint). The dry needling was done on the lower back to relieve tightness in the lumbar area. Along with other modalities like stim and ultrasound, these techniques are so incredibly helpful to release pain and tightness in the body. I am continuing to work on my presentation for express fest along with the essay! I ended my day with my last tennis practice ever with my amazing team!!! Tomorrow I...

 May 16, 2022  Daily hours: 6 hours 30 mins Total hours: 27 hours and 40 mins  Day 8 of senior project! Today I cranked out 6 hours of learning, observing, and reading. I started off my morning seeing some returning patients who were progressing very well and then later in the day I saw a few proctor faces. Diane had given me a few articles to read about ACL tears in alpine ski racers. Since I am a ski racer myself, I was very interested to read about how common ACL tears are in adolescents and how we can prevent them. I read 4 very intriguing articles that were all statistical and data-based to explain the similarities and differences between males and females, your level of fitness, fitness testing, and FIS points. Although that may sound confusing, these are all of the different ways US ski and snowboard and European ski teams are testing their athletes to make sure that they are the fittest for this high-risk injury sport.  Shoutout to CJ for being an awesome pat...

 May 15, 2022 Reflecting on my first week of senior project, I want to say how much I have enjoyed learning about PT and the people I have worked with and met so far! I have been able to observe the modalities of PT (cupping, dry needling, Graston, ice, heat, stim, ultrasound), the magic of massage, and patient care. It has been a pleasure to work with each patient and understand how critical patient care is in the PT world. You are there to help them physically and mentally as well since some come in with traumatic experiences that have caused their injury. Learning to be patient is something I have observed with a PT professional. Their job can be difficult sometimes depending on the patient they are working on, but patience and kindness go a long way. So far, I have enjoyed what I am doing and I am delighted to have picked this option as my senior project. I like having a structured schedule where I go in from 9 to 3, but I also have good flexibility during the rest of the da...

 MAY 14, 2022  Ragged Mountain Physcial Therapy was closed today so I did some work this morning before heading to my tennis match. I started to plan out how I wanted to present my project and also started writing my 3-5 page paper. I am really hoping next week to start making my blogs more visual to share what I have been learning in PT. I have also been chatting with Diane Fowler about an upcoming research project that she has been starting to work on about ski injuries and am hoping that I will be her test subject once she begins her work officially. This research project consists of different ways to prevent elite ski racers from injuries because they are more common than they should be.  Daily hours: 2 hours 30 mins Total hours: 21 hours 55 mins 

 May 13, 2022 Day 5 of senior project! I have already learned so much at the end of this week! Today I got into work around 9 and saw a few of the same patients from this week. Along with working with them, I was able to see some new patients well. I was able to put some gloves on today and feel where the tightness was in one of my patient's knees that had been reconstructed. With the help of Diane, she was able to use massage and the Graston technique to release tightness in his hamstring and calf muscles. After a few mins, his hamstring was so much more relaxed. I was also able to observe cupping on a patient who had hip and knee surgery. I was able to see where the cups were placed and how her body reacted to the cupping based off of her condition. In sports medicine class this spring we learned a lot about Qi and whether or not you have good Qi based off of the coloration of the skin from the cupping technique. Since there was a lot of scar tissue in my patient, she did not hav...

 May 12, 2022 Day 4 of senior project! Today I was able to observe dry needling on a patient for the first time. This delicate process is useful for relieving pain in the back area, specifically from the patient that I observed. I observed a few patients that I have already seen and they had all walked in the door saying that they were feeling really great from their last appointment so it was very nice to hear that they are processing in the right direction. I was also able to do some more hands-on things today like helping out with stim along with giving exercises to my patients based off of their condition. I also did some reading on physical therapy from a book where I had learned some more information on spinal injuries based off of a patient that I had. It had been very fun to connect with each patient that I have had so far and to share common interests about Proctor. Being able to have a strong connection with your patient results in an easier process. I have also enjoyed s...

 May 11, 2022 Today I had the day off because RMPT was closed, so I did a workout and went to my tennis match with my tennis team, winning 5-2! I also read online about physical therapy and wanted to learn more about rehab exercises and modalities like dry needling and ultrasound for about an hour. Even though I had the day off, I still used my time wisely and did some research on my own time, and reminisced about what I have learned from these past two days.  Daily hours: 1 hour Total hours: 9 hours and 30 mins 

 May 10, 2022 This morning, I started work at 9am and I was able to be more of an assistant today. The physical therapist was quizzing me on certain exercises that could work for different patients based off of their injury, it was really cool to be able to test myself based off of where the patient was in their recovery process. I was able to correct their form and give my input on what exercises I think would benefit my patient. I was also able to record and hand draw exercises for people to take home with them so they remember what exercises to do, which muscles they should be using, and the numbers of reps or rounds that they should be doing daily. One patient, in particular, today said that they were doing the hustle dance as a way to get in their rehab exercises for a knee injury, so we put on the hustle music and made her teach us how to do the hustle while focusing on the exercise! It was so fun to see her make the recovery process fun and make it for us to watch! Today I a...

 May 9, 2022 First day of the senior project! I have learned a lot already! Today I observed two physical therapists who worked on people from hip replacement to post-op ACL injuries. I wide variety of people of all different ages walked through that door ready to help strengthen and heal their bodies. It was very interesting to see the patient care side of things because it's important to make sure that each patient was as comfortable as possible especially since physical therapy can be a difficult process. I was able to not only observe but give feedback from patients who were struggling with certain exercises and express what I noticed and where their weaknesses were to help strengthen them. I was also able to take my knowledge about stim from my sports medicine class and observe how it was being used on a patient 19 days post-op from an ACL/meniscus reconstruction. Overall, this first day has been a great learning opportunity and I can't wait for more!  Hours for today: 4 ...