Tag Archives: Kitsap Physical Therapy

Lymphedema, Bone on Bone Arthritis, COPD – Prayer, Predisone, Water Workouts Help Heal this Patient

Regular rehab is fabulous. But? It doesn’t go far enough – long enough – it hurts and it isn’t challenging enough.

Years ago, before beginning a concentrated physical exercise routine I asked my pulmo how high I should allow my heart rate to go and he sincerely and thoughtfully said I probably shouldn’t let it get over 100 at the beginning. I laughed and told him it shoots to 100 just getting up from a chair! I’ve not asked anyone since.

I’ve had a few really outstanding rehab technicians and I’ve learned from them. They have to follow rules though and I don’t. I’m a patient and I’m through coddling myself when I feel sick because I have a goal and it has to happen this year.

Except for one day when I was in Harrison and couldn’t make my swim session…we haven’t missed one swim session since we began 1 February 2011. No matter what, my legs can ooze, my lungs labor and wheeze or burn with a fever – nothing stands in the way of a swim session.

Marilyn Grindrod is my swim coach and a miracle worker. The only thing she said when we met and she asked if my doctor approved of what we planned to do and I told her I believed they did but I would not ever ask my doctors to give me a written note guaranteeing my fitness to exercise. They couldn’t. Nobody could. Marilyn nodded and said, “get in the water, let’s get started.”

She doesn’t say I can’t do something. She leads the way and I follow as best I can. Gradually I’m improving to a physical fitness I haven’t had in years and is proving out what Anna Marx, PT, DPT at Kitsap Physical Therapy in Silverdale proved to me: the right machine/exercise WILL help my left hip get better and manageable.

Marilyn also, by changing my work-outs and her focus on breathing, must be getting oxygen to areas that have suffered without the oxygen they’ve needed…such as the Lymphedema in my lower legs.

Melissa will be surprised when I have to go in to be measured for another set of support stockings. Lower leg muscle will meet her measuring tape, not the flab of yesterday.

My legs (left leg mostly) occasionally still need and get the Old Guy’s expert spiral and padded wrapping when the skin gets too painful and I know if we don’t catch it, the skin will crack and lymphatic fluid will again ooze out. This is the longest stretch I’ve not needed to see a doc or Melissa at NW Orthopedic and Lymphoma rehab in Port Orchard for another outbreak! Melissa’s patient education works.

My ideal week is four, one hour or longer sessions in the warm pool water. The work-outs are nonstop, smooth and I can feel my locked body become more flexible, more agile and I’m beginning to feel muscle again.

A couple weeks ago working out close to the diving board I impulsively reached up and grabbed the end of the board and began doing ‘chin ups’- shooting myself up out of the water and above the board to my chest, lowered myself and repeated 15 times. That was a lot of weight I pulled up – the point is I did it easily – the first twelve anyway.

So, you can’t live a life in the water can you? No. What I can now do on land is lift my left leg about a foot and flex my left ankle. They’ve been – sort of – frozen. When something hurts we have a tendency to back off and it becomes a spiral into a body that doesn’t work and eventually gets dumped into a wheelchair.

My patient opinion is that physical rehab works best, is most effective in the water. The warm pool water resistance gets us further faster with less pain.

I believe in miracles.

In a Pulmonary Function Test two months ago, 16 February 2011 my FEV 1 (Gold Standard for COPD) sats had dropped across the board: 35% – 31% – 29%.

Last week 6 April 2011 across the board they were: 56% – 50% – 48%

Christopher Goss, MD at the University of Washington Medical Center was amazed and doesn’t need to see me again for five or six months.

What made the difference? The longer non-burst of Predisone he extended? A miracle? Prayers? Serious water work-out by a professional swim coach?

My sister lives in a small town in Kentucky and goes to a Revival church. She and her companion each stood up and asked the minister and congregation to “pray for Karen’s sister, Sharon in Washington” and Karen says they do!

Kristin Okinaka, a reporter at the weekly CK Reporter AND a runner recently came out and wrote an article and took a photo that shows some of my recumbent trikes… http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/ckr/news/119501909.html

The following article is what prompted this post today: If Great Brittan can do it – we can too!

“Exercise pilot is successful for rheumatoid arthritis

People with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Portsmouth reaped the benefits from an exercise pilot, which was the first of its kind in the UK.

Volunteers took part in a 10-week programme to get exercising in the local area. They had tried various activities, including yoga, tai chi, walking and circuit-based exercises.

‘Appropriate, regular exercise is very important for people with rheumatoid arthritis, even when they are experiencing a flare of their symptoms,’ said Colin Beevor, matron and service manager of musculoskeletal outpatient department services at Queen Alexandra Hospital, where the pilot was launched. ‘Being more active helps to control joint swelling and ultimately can reduce the pain, stiffness and fatigue a patient may experience.’

Rather than hospital-based exercise, local facilities were used to encourage participants to become accustomed to working out in a familiar environment. By learning the basics of a variety of activities, participants were also able to discover which forms of exercise they enjoyed the most, with a view to continuing with the exercise after the pilot ended.

Around 700,000 people in the UK have RA, and while many recognise the importance and benefit of exercise for their condition, obstacles such as the prohibitive cost of classes or feeling stigmatised or embarrassed in group classes can stop people with RA regularly exercising.

Local firms such as private gyms and sports centres are now being encouraged to offer discounts to people with RA to enable the participants of the pilot to continue their exercise programme….”

The pilot, run by Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Solent Healthcare and UCB Pharma Ltd, received positive feedback from participants. http://www.arthritiscare.org.uk/NewsRoom/Latestnewsstories/Exercisepilotissuccessfulforrheumatoidarthritis

More later…thanks for listening… Sharon O’Hara

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Is Cycling Healthier for a Lung Patient with Right Heart Failure Than Walking?

Sharon O'Hara

I am a patient with questions and one of them is:

Is cycling better or healthier for a lung patient with Right Heart Failure than walking.

Based on medical terminology I clearly don’t understand – it APPEARS to say so to this patient…based on the paper I blogged on and the paper I found using the Google search for: oxyhemoglobin desaturation.

“Oxyhemoglobin desaturation can be quite severe and can even lead to damage to vital organs, particularly the heart, to the point of being life-threatening.3”

Identifying Sleep Disordered Breathing in Neuromuscular Disorder Patients

by Joshua Benditt, MD, and Louis Boitano, MS, RRT

***

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is one thing, add bone on bone left hip and a person has to really fight to move it and I’m doing in the pool what I can’t do ‘on land’ easily – leg up and loosen and build muscle around that hip so I can ride again. One day the muscling should support it and make it comfortable enough to ride my recumbent trikes again.

I KNOW it will work because when I had physical therapy last year, the personable and talented Anna Marx at Kitsap Physical Therapy in Silverdale put me on a machine I could not only tolerate – a recumbent elliptical – over time I actually loosened up enough where I could and did – close my eyes and built speed and a rhythm on that machine – exactly like riding a recumbent trike, a horse…without the pain of the bone on bone left hip!

I’ve begun working out four days a week with an amazing professional swim instructor and I hope and expect to regain much of the function I lost. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. It appears to be working – a ‘study’ in itself. More later.

That said, what about my question:

Is cycling better or healthier for a lung patient with right heart failure than walking?

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BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibit greater oxyhemoglobin desaturation during walking than with cycling. The purpose of this investigation was to investigate differences in ventilatory responses and gas exchange as proposed mechanisms for this observation.

http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/2011/02/08/a-new-study-for-copders-mechanism-of-greater-oxygen-desaturation-during-walking-compared-with-cycling-in-copd/

Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/#ixzz1DTzzcGaW

“Oxyhemoglobin desaturation can be quite severe and can even lead to damage to vital organs, particularly the heart, to the point of being life-threatening.3”

Identifying Sleep Disordered Breathing in Neuromuscular Disorder Patients

by Joshua Benditt, MD, and Louis Boitano, MS, RRT

Joshua Benditt, MD, is a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle. He is also director of respiratory care services, Northwest Assisted Breathing Center, University of Washington Medical Center. He can be reached at benditt@u.washington.edu. Louis Boitano, MS, RRT, is codirector of the Northwest Assisted Breathing Center, University of Washington Medical Center. Boitano can be reached at boitano@u.washington.edu.

The symptoms of sleep disordered breathing in patients with neuromuscular disease can be subtle, but once recognized and treated, symptoms can improve.

http://www.sleepreviewmag.com/issues/articles/2007-01_03.asp

I don’t know how this all fits together for us – I also have sleep apnea and sleep with a bi-pap and concentrator bleed in to the bi-pap.

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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Harrison Medical Center Works with DRG/1

Sharon O'Hara

What is YOUR Hospital DRG?

“Part 2 deals with the $11,376.32 loss to Harrison after two insurance companies paid $1,100.00 and $5,109.58.
How long can any business survive if they are compelled to absorb such losses?”

I discovered answers from Harrison’s new Patient Financial Supervisor, Christine Warner. Additionally, I learned that Harrison offers deep discounts, and has other programs in place via a “Contractual Allowance.”
Contact them and see what they can do for you.

According to Christine Warner, my DRG is 300 thus accounting for their low Medicare payment reimbursement.

The Tricare reimbursement is based on the Medicare rate of return and other insurances may pay more.

Medicare will also pay more than the hospital charges for other patients with lower numbers helping offset the high numbered patients like me.

As more baby bloomers enter Medicare, Harrison and other hospitals will be hard pressed to cut costs….and, I hope, get more into preventative issues and using patients to help each other.

Something I think would help cut future costs and that is to educate the patient by was of a genetic support group, meeting once a week. The issues are much the same for patients with multiple medical conditions and the emphasis should be on nutrition, and physical fitness. We could invite speakers from around the county…even from among the patients.

I have found a similar mindset among the best professionals I have met and been challenged by all. Patients teach each other and most medical professionals would be happy to help the cause of better health.

To name a few: Yvonne Kerstad with Janice McFarland’s, Body ReForm, Silverdale’s Pilates and Physical Therapy Studio. Yvonne altered many of the exercises to suit my physical condition Yvonne can also address firsthand, exercising pre and post around a hip replacement.

Anna Marx, Kitsap Physical Therapy, Silverdale, is another who thinks outside the circle. She proved to me that I COULD increase the range of motion of my left hip. Additionally, Sara is a recumbent bike rider and entered in the 2010 Seattle – Portland ride

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“Medicare Prospective Payment System

Introduction

The Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS) was introduced by the federal government in October, 1983, as a way to change hospital behavior through financial incentives that encourage more cost-efficient management of medical care. Under PPS, hospitals are paid a pre-determined rate for each Medicare admission. Each patient is classified into a Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) on the basis of clinical information. Except for certain patients with exceptionally high costs (called outliers), the hospital is paid a flat rate for the DRG, regardless of the actual services provided.

Each Medicare patient is classified into a Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) according to information from the Medical Record that appears on the bill:

• Principal Diagnosis (why the patient was admitted)
• Complications and Comorbidities (CCs – other secondary diagnoses)
• Surgical Procedures
• Age
• Gender
• Discharge Disposition (routine, transferred, or expired)

How it Works

Diagnoses and procedures must be documented by the attending physician in the patient�s medical record. They are then coded by hospital personnel using ICD-9-CM nomenclature. This is a numerical coding scheme of over 13,000 diagnoses and 5,000 procedures.

The coding process is extremely important since it essentially determines what DRG will be assigned for a patient. Coding an incorrect principal diagnosis or failing to code a significant secondary diagnosis can dramatically effect reimbursement.

There are over 490 DRG categories defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly known as HCFA). Each category is designed to be “clinically coherent.” In other words, all patients assigned to a DRG are deemed to have a similar clinical condition. The Prospective Payment System is based on paying the average cost for treating patients in the same DRG.

Each year CMS makes technical adjustments to the DRG classification system that incorporate new technologies (e.g. laparoscopic procedures) and refine its use as a payment methodology. CMS also initiates changes to the ICD-9-CM coding scheme. The DRG assignment process is computerized in a program called the grouper that is used by hospitals and fiscal intermediaries.

Each year CMS also assigns a relative weight to each DRG. These weights indicate the relative costs for treating patients during the prior year. The national average charge for each DRG is compared to the overall average. This ratio is published annually in the Federal Register for each DRG. A DRG with a weight of 2.0000 means that charges were historically twice the average; a DRG with a weight of 0.5000 was half the average.

Top 10 DRGs
The ten highest volume Medicare DRGs represent about 30% of total Medicare patients. Each of these higher volume DRGs represent from about 2% to 6% of total Medicare volume.

DRG DRG Description % Total Rel Wt

1 127 Heart Failure & Shock 5.99 1.0234
2 089 Simple Pneumonia & Pleurisy Age>17 w/CC1 3.85 1.1447
3 014 Specific Cerebrovascular Disorders except TIA 3.18 1.2056
4 430 Psychoses 3.18 0.9153
5 088 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease 3.11 1.0067
6 209 Major Joint & Limb Reattachment Procedures, Lower Extremity 2.78 2.3491
7 140 Angina Pectoris 2.33 0.6241
8 182 Esophagitis, Gastroent & Misc Digest Disorders Age>17 w/CC1 2.09 0.7617
9 174 G.I. Hemorrhage w/CC1 2.07 0.9657
10 296 Nutritional & Misc Metabolic Disorders Age>17w/CC1 1.93 0.9313

Note: “CC” signifies a significant complication or comorbidity
Source: Health Care Financing Administration, 1994.
DRG-based Payments
The DRG payment for a Medicare patient is determined by multiplying the relative weight for the DRG by the hospital�s blended rate:…”
DRG PAYMENT = WEIGHT x RATE

Read more: http://pugetsoundblogs.com/copd-and-other-stuff/2010/06/26/harrisons-strength-is-in-her-volunteers-and-staff/#ixzz0s42zrGV0

http://www.ahd.com/pps.html

More later… Sharon O’Hara

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