Third year Day 185 - Monday June 16, 2014

Today was our second appointment with Lynn Beauclair, the speech therapist.  We are seeing her for cognitive and memory issues, not speech per se.  I was a little discouraged at the end of the last appointment, as Lynn indicated that she thought Bridgett did not score any better then she had previously at the end of 2012.  However, I did ask that she get me a copy of the report to give to me today to read over and to forward to Glenda.  I was surprised the, upon reading the report, that she had made some significant improvements......In the attention category, she moved from the 3rd to the 27th percentile rank, which Lynn indicated was within the normal range now.  (I will ask her if she can give me a breakdown of what percentiles are in the normal range)  Also, in the visual spatial/constructional category, she moved from the 30th to the 63rd percentile rank!  The other three categories tested were all memory related, and of course, she did very poorly in these ranges.  This is of course what we are trying to work on!  Also, we had a short discussion on the Rancho Scale.  Below is a very brief breakdown of the Rancho Scale.

The Ranchos Los Amigos Scale measures the levels of awareness, cognition, behavior and interaction with the environment.

Ranchos Los Amigos Scale

Level I: No Response
Level II: Generalized Response
Level III: Localized Response
Level IV: Confused-agitated
Level V: Confused-inappropriate
Level VI: Confused-appropriate
Level VII: Automatic-appropriate

Level VIII: Purposeful-appropriate

Lynn said that although she has been working for years with the Rancho scale, it does not work with Bridgett!  She said that Bridgett is at level 8 in someways and at level 5-6 in other ways.  She said that using the Rancho scale, it is impossible to categorize Bridgett.  Well, I do believe that her brain is healing in certain areas quicker than in other areas.  And, we were told that as long as she is improving, no matter the pace, that we should feel hope for more improvement.  So, we have hope, yes, hope!  

Bridgett did great for 40 minutes of the appointment, then she all of the sudden got that feeling that she was going to pass out.  At that point, she had been showing Lynn what she had done in her physical therapy appointment last week.  She was demonstrating the correct way to do lunges.  She remembers what she had been taught about the teaching others to do these things, and she did a great job of instructing I thought.  Anyway, suddenly she thought she would pass out or throw up, so they got her a tub to hold and she just sat quietly while Lynn and I talked for about 10-12 minutes.  Then she and Lynn worked a little more after that, just quietly and with no stress.