Hello! I am Brianna Stone and I’m a pintern who attends Montrose High School in Montrose, Colorado. This summer I have been provided the opportunity to experience an internship in Louisville, Kentucky at the Frazier Rehabilitation and Neuroscience Center. So far, my internship has included taking part in research studies and physical therapy sessions focused on improving the neurological control maintained by patients and participants through spinal cord rehabilitation.This first week has been full of new experiences. It marked the first time I had ever flown in a plane before, and alone at that, my first time with a host family, and my first time in the eastern part of the United States.
To start off my first day, I put on my business-casual uniform of scrubs for pants and a dry-wick active wear shirt, which was much more comfortable than I had expected it to be.
Navigating through the city of Louisville led me to the U of L Health buildings pictured below. The building that my internship takes place in is the furthest one in the back of the photo with the x-shaped windows along the side of it.
“Kentuckyone Health Office Photos | Glassdoor.” Glassdoor, https://www.glassdoor.com/Photos/KentuckyOne-Health-Office-Photos-IMG561858.htm.
Throughout the day I moved around between multiple floors. I started off on the 12th floor where I observed an assessment of an individual who wanted to participate in one of the studies conducted by the Frazier Rehab Institute. Part of this assessment included assisted walking in one of the 12th floor halls using a machine known as U.L.G.A, which is the device depicted below.
After observing how this machine worked, I shadowed a couple of different people while visiting the 9th, 11th, and 15th floors. For the rest of the week, I continued to move between the 9th, 11th, 12th, and 15th floors where I would learn about what the different information gathered from participants in a study showed and how different forms of physical therapy help patients differently depending on their capabilities.
There are two gyms on the 9th floor that were generally used for physical training sessions. During these sessions, there were a couple of different areas that were used to stimulate a patients muscles, increase circulation when needed, help introduce and install a recognition of what it’s like to walk, and achieve other objectives. These areas included mats, an assisted walking machine, and a structure that patients could stand at with the assistance of others. The assisted walking machine had a treadmill and required the individual partaking in the session to wear a harness that was attached to the frame of the machine in order to orient and support them. In most cases, the patients would have electrodes attached to them that provided stimulation to help them carry out these tasks in addition to the support provided by the equipment, and employees or other interns.
The type of treatment or research studies that individuals participated in was determined based on their injury. For instance, some people may have had sensory in their limbs and only really had neurological difficulties in their legs, while others couldn’t use their arms or legs. Each person’s physical capabilities were dependent on the area of the spinal cord injured whether it was the cervical, thoracic, lumbar, or sacral areas or a combination of those. For this reason, each person received specialized attention catered to the most efficient way of improving their neurological functioning.
This week I got to assist some of these sessions in the form of running computer programs that gathered data regarding the amount of stimulation circulating through the electrodes adhered to the surface of participant’s skin, as well as taking blood pressure. Below is a photo of the first time I had taken blood pressure at the Frazier Rehab Institute.
I also got to witness the use of a “gravity neutral” device meant to assess a participant’s inter-limb coordination. Part of this assessment included shoes that astronauts tend to use in order to simulate walking. These shoes achieve this by pumping air into flexible compartments placed on the heel and toe part of the shoe to inflate and deflate those areas in order to imitate different parts of the foot touching the ground at different times.
My time in Louisville, Kentucky has also included meeting my host family: Brigid and David as well as their two sons, Graham and Angus. They introduced me to their local pool, Lakeside, which was formed from an old limestone quarry.
We have also gotten ice cream, a super delicious treat, and played many board games. Graham and Angus taught me how to play different card games (shown below), and “Throw, Throw Burrito”. So far my stay in Louisville has been fantastic and all of the people that I’ve met have been very welcoming. I can’t wait to continue my internship!
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