I work in the world of rehabilitation as an Occupational Therapist. I have worked in this field for ten years in several different nursing homes. I have seen staff, co-workers, and residents come and go. I can usually remember the faces but the names escape me. There is a weird dynamic in most nursing homes between therapy and nursing. We are working with the same patients but we come from different worlds. We use different terminology to describe the same thing. You would think by now we would have figured this out.
Nursing uses words like limited assist, extensive assist and total assist to describe how much help a resident needs to transfer, bathe, toilet and dress. Therapy uses words like minimum assist, moderate assist and maximum assist to describe the exact same thing. Nursing staff strive to make sure each person is safe, clean and dressed. The therapist is working towards having the same person be as independent as possible; prepared to return to their prior level of function.
