Week 7 – A look at a day at Craig

This week began the 4th week of rehabilitation at Craig Hospital. Noah continues to show improvement in all areas of therapy. It is also more work for him, and sometimes less fun. Fortunately for him, that is offset with Technology Therapy (where he is making good use of their Virtual Reality) a couple of times of week. What is a normal day for Noah at Craig?  His day varies some from other  patients,  but they all follow a similar schedule.

Noah is typically awake by 6 am and sometime earlier. Brain injury patients have a difficult time regulating their sleep, so he is still on sleep meds. It makes for a long morning as he waits for breakfast (7-9), but it allows him to ease into the day.  This week he begins the day with Speech Therapy at 8:30. It’s two 30 minutes sessions a day. This is where he gets most of his brain workout! Their focus lately has been on the speed of processing and deductive reasoning.  In speech, all patients also have a project to complete during their time at Craig. Noah’s is a donation drive for The Heritage HS Marching Band. At 9 am he has Occupational Therapy, which is an hour a day and also works his noggin’. Here he is practicing real-life situations that will be helpful in day to day activities: organization, planning, multi-tasking, etc.  It’s difficult to find tasks at Craig relevant to a 16 year old boy’s life.  That is where Out-Patient Therapy will come into play more.  10 am is Physical Therapy. He’s been working on his  balance, and more specifically the third sense of balance – in this case: eyes closed and one foot off the ground on a foam mat – quite the challenge.  He also got to try out a recumbent bike (tandem for the first ride). Pretty cool!   Lunch and a rest period (11:30 – 1 pm) end his morning.  Then mixed throughout the afternoon is stationary biking, T-zone (strategy games); neuropsychology; and a couple of more physical group activities: Great Strides and TBI Power Hour that round out his afternoon.  A couple of days a week, he has Technology Occupation Therapy – by far his favorite! His ‘work day’ is over between 4 and 5 pm. Then it’s dinner (4:30-6:15).  Whenever there’s some time to just hang, Noah enjoys playing games. We’ve added quite a few to our family library!  He takes his sleep meds around 8:30 and is usually tired out by 9 pm.  Now if we could only keep that schedule for school 🙂

Alyssa is home for two weeks…..We’ve all loved that but Noah in particular!