Mirror, mirror

It is 10pm on Thursday and since Monday morning, we have only had about 1 hour of internet access, so I will try to catch up and hope that I can post this soon. (Note: it is now 7pm on Friday and hope is restored ☺)

On Monday this little cutie came in to be treated for clubfoot, something which is fairly common in developing countries.

 This is one of our regulars, riding the bike

 I was keeping this guy occupied while one of our PTs worked on his legs

On Tuesday I began working with a middle aged business man who had suffered a stroke. He is my first patient who speaks some English (Niger is francophone) and he and his brothers enjoy making fun of my Hausa phrases.

I instructed our OT student, Amy, on how to make a mirror box for hand therapy. On Monday this man’s wrist was weak and his hand was mostly paralyzed (right hemiparesis) immediately following the stroke. On Tuesday we put his right hand in the box and he did activities with his left (good) hand for 15 minutes while watching himself in the mirror so that his brain was under the illusion that he once again had two good hands.

We followed that by removing the box and repeating the same activities with his right hand (squeezing a ball, placing pegs, stacking tiles, flipping cards, etc.).

After 3 sessions of mirror therapy his right hand could do this:

Amy presented our mirror therapy to the doctors and pharmacist at the staff meeting today ☺ You have to subscribe to the journal in order to read the research on it (I know you want to!), so take me at my word when I say that the research shows that this is the most effective type of therapy intervention for someone who has had a hemiplegic stroke. Amy also implemented it today with a lady (younger than me) who had a postpartum stroke after birthing her first baby, a beautiful and healthy little girl. Please pray for both of these patients to make the fullest recovery possible.

And for our internet to remain ON! 😁

But back to putting everything in perspective:

On Weds Deb and I happened to be in the OR looking for someone when a patient coded on the table. Residents calmly stepped in and performed CPR and we saw him restored to life right there, praise God. However, last weekend there was a house fire in the village and someone dumped what they thought was water but was actually petrol on it, burning 4 people. A 7 year old boy has died and 3 men are still being treated for their burns here. Please pray for them and their families.