I am a geriatrician,wife and mum of one six year old who works across sub-acute wards and outpatient clinics at Caulfield Hospital, which is part of Alfred Health in Melbourne, Australia.
In my work I help look after patients who have had acute illnesses and the reason that they can't get home (yet) is often because they have become deconditioned whilst being in hospital.
I then see them again in the clinic, sometimes months later, and they are still not fully over their hospitalisation. The human body is amazing at what it can and can't recover from. Looking after older adults there might be many things that it is too late for us to prevent, but this should not have to be one of them.
It was probably natural that I ended up creating something like the Get Dressed, Get Moving, Get Better booklet as it's really a collision of my work world and my home-life.
We love to draw and read books at home, and Dr Seuss is one of our (possibly my?) favourites. I get tetchy if I don't pick up pens every few days to draw and this came about after our #EndPJparalysis group at work had a discussion about the potential for not using the same old style of education resources for our staff and patients.
This just seemed so appropriate for the #EndPJparalysis movement. We have to think in different ways to innovate and get our messages to stand out from the multitude of messages that we are exposed to everyday. I'm glad it's resonated with people!
Amelia
Tag and share on Twitter: @crabtree_amelia
