At the physiotherapist

A few years ago, I had a bad fall and caused some damage to my knee. I was referred for a course of NHS physiotherapy  . I naturally enough thought that they would have come across blind people as patients before and to have some level of training and understanding about how to make their practice accessible to visually impaired patients (or those with any other impairment). However,  this turned out not to be the case.

 

Over a period of months with regular visits, each time seeing different physiotherapists from the team, I was surprised  that while they all clearly understood that my white stick represented blindness, few had any understanding of what it meant in practice – that association between blindness and not being able to see seemed to have missed them.

 

While a couple of women did understand it and adapted their practice accordingly, I was surprised that the others (mainly the men) seemed to take it in verbally, but couldn’t stop pointing, saying:

“watch me”,

“like this”

“do it this way”

“look what I’m doing”

“you’re doing it like this”

 

Even when I suggested that it would be helpful if they could try to describe what they were trying to impart to me, they could not do it.

 

I resorted to going to a private physio who, without issue, took on my access needs and I couldn’t have hoped for better descriptions and demonstrations of the exercises I was given.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

'Are you causing trouble again?'

I can’t say how irritating, embarrassing and patronising it feels to hear the phrase: “are you causing trouble again?” used as a greeting to me in a kind of over-familiar, knowing, slightly too loud, falsely aspirant voice, intended more to be heard by others than for me.   It’s happened so many times over the years - in cafes, when I’ve been queuing at the counter, conferences when I’ve been trying to find somewhere to sit, arriving at a meeting and finding a seat or a cup of tea…   It often happens when I am in a less than familiar or uncomfortable situation , and never said by people who are close to me, but by people who don’t know how to be around me, people who perhaps have a view of me, their way of matching me with some stereotype of blind people that I can be slotted into.   I’m not a natural ‘trouble-causer’ )whatever that may be) or at least I don’t carry any trouble-causing that I might exude with pride or confidence. I can be difficult,, edgy sometimes, critical, challengi
Read more

On-street greetings - continued

Following my earlier post, I realised that I hadn’t fully made my point and wanted to finish it.   Sight, with its ability to see faces, might provide ways in to a more connected experience of neighbourhood and community than blindness.  As people walk about the streets, nodding or smiling in acknowledgement of each other as they pass.  Without being able to see people’s faces, to see them making such non-verbal acknowledgement of my existence, I find walking around the streets of my neighbourhood an isolating  experience, passing countless people  in complete silence and at most moving out of each other’s way (other than those who know me). This is far more so for me in the city where there are people who won’t speak to each other, than in the countryside where I might encounter nobody.   I noticed people actually speaking to each other on the streets during lockdown – just saying ‘HI/Alright’ and hoped that the practice would continue, but it seems that things have all too quickly dr
Read more

They just can't help themselves

I went for my first COVID vaccination at the beginning of March at my local health centre. After (fairly logically) queueing outside the main entrance for 10 minutes, I learned through overhearing a conversation at the front of the queue that the vaccinations were taking place in another part of the building with a different entrance. The health centre  had not thought to communicate this to their patients in advance as the written signs were expected to do the trick for everyone. The receptionist on the door apparently suffered from the (not uncommon) white stick blindness, and I realised that she was using gesticulations to indicate the direction I needed. After having explained that the white stick meant that I couldn’t see enough to follow her directions, I eventually found my own way to the correct (tucked away and locked) entrance. I (perhaps too politely) suggested that it would have been helpful if they could have tagged visually impaired patients in their database giving us cl
Read more