Ruth, I understand the frustration, I figure that I am in continuous rehab 24 hours a day. What your therapist is missing is a therapy model. What are the exercises being done for? This almost seems like, well he can do these exercises so keep doing them. The therapists needs to map those exercises to specific functions/movements. Unless we start demanding more of our therapists/doctors they will never do the hard work of determining what actually works for stroke rehab. The other thing to ask your therapist is what needs to be done to reduce the exhaustion. Don't accept the comment that he just needs to increase his cardiovascular fitness, that is a copout. But then Ruth I am just a bomb-thrower upsetting all the carefully constructed fictions of stroke rehab. :blah_blah:

Dean

Ruth, that sounds like the home exercise list the O.T. gave Larry. It was 7 pages and each page was a different category with about 3 exercises per page. He was to do these twice a day. It was too overwhelming for him and he didn't want to do them at first. Now he has it down to about a few in the a.m. and a few in the afternoon. That's all I can push him to do. I would think the pool would cancel out the P.T. for the day. I'm glad you like the therapist. That makes a difference. It helps if therapists cheer them on and smile. One O.T. kept telling Larry to smile. I felt like saying "why don't you smile?" LOL

Ruth, I sympathize with you and feel your pain. The therapists do the same thing to Bernie and me. My sweet Bernadette is about 75% cognitive and just beginning to walk dangerously with and without the help of a walker, I have to watch her every move. The PT guy gave us 3 sets of sheets with different exercises, the same as they did to you and William. I asked the guy if this was a joke, he said he didn't understand my question. Then I told him to sit down and listen and look at the med check off sheets with the pill crusher and tube feeding and calorie count sheets and the bite, chew, swallow exercises, and the laundry and the garbage and the cooking and the cleaning and the exhausted survivor. He got tired of listening and told me to do the best I could. Like I said Ruth, I feel your pain. On the other hand, my doctor lets me take Xanax. Merry Christmas, Mike-n-Bernie

Ruth: Nobody does more for their person than you! My one complaint to Bruce's therapists was that everything they wanted done only put more work on me and I wasn't the one in therapy! His last therapist, when she knew we would no longer be coming back gave him 5 exercises to do on his own, with no help from me and for that I commend her. William is making incredible progress and until you see a plateau, he will only benefit with the therapist ADDED to what you already do. Keep the list handy if you have an off day and he needs a little boost and do try to do the E Stims and splints. But also I thank you for the list as both Jen and Leo have been asking for some new stuff and this will help them. Debbie