Koon-Siong Tan

7.30 AM

After about 30 minutes of hitting the snooze button, I finally get up to have breakfast and get dressed before going to work. As usual, it’s a bowl of oats with a touch of honey to keep me going until lunch. 

8.00 AM

The drive to work in the morning is sometimes uneventful, but travel times can be unpredictable. Today however, it appears to be a steady 20 minute commute.

8.30 AM

Every morning, our small physio team has a meeting where we go through any falls that residents may have had since we’ve been here, as well as decide which of us will be assigned to which wing of the facility. If there are any new residents arriving, we will also discuss who will perform the initial assessments. Additionally, if any residents are returning from hospital, we will need to re-assess their mobility status in case they have declined, and now require more assistance than before their hospital admission.

9.00 AM

Time to review residents who have had falls or been discharged from hospital over the previous day/ weekend. It’s important that we assess and review each resident’s pain, as well as mobility and functional status. After this, it’s imperative that we document our findings and recommendations so that all care staff are aware of any changes that we may make to a resident’s mobility status or pain management.

10.00 AM

Now it is about time we start our treatment session. Let’s get our massage cream and provide a bit of pain relief for our residents on the pain management program. These residents have been identified as having chronic pain areas that would benefit from allied health input, which mainly consists of massage.   

10.30 AM

This meeting is important for us to let the facility manager, ACFI staff, and clinical managers know how we are travelling with our treatments, as well as our fall, hospital and mobility reviews. It allows us all to be on the same page and raise any concerns that we may have.

12.00 PM

Bring your own food or go to the various food outlets nearby, it’s your choice! We enjoy our food and have a laugh with our fellow colleagues in the tea room before it’s back to work. 

12.30 PM

This is the perfect time to provide our shorter treatments for residents who do not require as much time for their pain management program.

12.45 PM

Time to set up for manual handling training. We need to sufficiently educate care staff about falls prevention strategies, manual handling principles and the use of hoists and slide sheets to ensure the safety of residents and all care staff within the facility.

1.00 PM

At the beginning of the training, we discuss some of the theory behind the importance of safe manual handling and falls prevention strategies. We then go on to a demonstration of the correct use of slide sheets and various hoists. Following this, we supervise the care staff as we provide them with scenarios in which they have to use each of the hoists and slide sheets.

2.00 PM

Now we need to get back to providing treatment for our residents on the pain management program. This is where we complete most of our treatment sessions throughout the day. 

4.40 PM

We cannot forget documentation! We need to ensure that all treatment sessions have been documented in each of the residents’ pain management chart. We also need to ensure that all outstanding mobility, falls and post-hospital reviews have been appropriately documented before we can head home.

5.00 PM

Finally, after a hard day’s work it’s time to play some beach volleyball. I drive about 10 minutes away from work

8.00 PM

After an exhaustive week at work and a few games at volleyball, it’s time to wind down and enjoy a meal with the team.