Validate

When correcting an employee's actions or asking him/her to do something different with procedures, correct briefly and validate the other strengths the employee demonstrates. So if I have an employee that leaves early without telling me, my response to him/her would be something like "Hey Diane I need to speak with you. You left early yesterday and didn't let me know...Helen could've used your help because she was overloaded. I know that is unusual for you as you are always so thorough with everything you do - I admire that". Or it might sound something like this: "John you left early yesterday and didn't tell me - don't let it happen again.... hey I like what you did with Henry today...what a difference!!" I don't use the word "but...." because it just erases anything positive that you just said. I also don't lead with the compliment and follow with the correction because he/she will remember the last thing you said longer than the first thing you said. Correct quickly/briefly.. and then validate strengths.

Refusals

Often therapists try educational approaches and ultimately try sending in the business office or administrator to reason with a patient that is refusing. Most of the time refusals are a symptom of executive dysfunctions and should be handled by an OTR or SLP. A therapist must establish rapport before treating a patient with early Dementia or executive dysfunctions. This time of establishing rapport can be documented as "Skilled graded approach to engage patient participation in full therapy plan of treatment". Another goal might read as "Patient will participate in environmental engagement activities 80% of opportunities indep". Those activities that you use to establish rapport can include something as simple as getting the patient his/her favorite soda or something else that is important to the patient. Sometimes you can interact with someone else at the patient's meal table to demonstrate you are trustworthy. Another way is to join him/her at activities and allow the patient to teach you how to do it. Allowing the patient to be the expert in one area, will go a long way to build trust so the patient will be willing to allow you to be the expert in another area. It's about building trust.

Introduction

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist with over 20 years of experience. I work for an amazing company; Transitions Rehab as a Clinical Educator. I have worked in nearly every facet of the Sub-Acute Rehab world and still learning something new everyday. I've worked all over the country and the therapy world is smaller than you might think. We all have similar frustrations, but fortunately we all have different strengths which we can share to make our careers more successful and less challenging.