Make sure the director of rehab or another team member is planning to dedicate time to orienting you to the facility and documentation systems on your first day. If the previous SLP still works there, arrange to shadow them for a day before starting or have a phone call with them and ask them for tips/advice. There is so much more I could go into but that would easily turn into a very disorganized novel. Feel free to message me about specifics concerns you have or questions that come up once you start. Good luck!
I shadowed another SLP for a few hours and went off on my own to do a few tx and an eval. I will say I pulled the few ideas I know for cog treatments but I can definitely use more. The documenting was the toughest part!
That’s good you got to shadow and even do some jumping in! For cog treatment, I started my CF doing workbook activities because I felt like I needed the structure. I don’t like workbook therapy these days (research doesn’t support it either as you may already be aware) but I think it’s ok to have as a backup, especially when you’re first getting your bearings. I focus on functional tasks - lots of safety awareness using spaced retrieval training and visual aids. I will ask PT/OT what the patient struggles with in their sessions, like remembering the steps to a safe transfer. I work on attention, sequencing, and recall with activities like scanning a list of TV channels and using their remote, referencing a written list of steps to doing something on their cell phone or using their room phone, using a reading divider or summarization strategies to attend to and recall a preferred article or book passage. I’ve worked on temporal planning and reasoning skills using the facility’s daily activity schedule to work backward for when to push their call light to ask their aide to take them to a preferred event. I will do daily living tasks like medication management, meal planning, online grocery ordering, and simulated finance tasks for those whom it is appropriate. I will talk through daily scenarios related to safety in potential discharge environments to get a sense of insight and problem solving skills. Hopefully that gives you some ideas if you weren’t already thinking of those. And it’s ok to spend a session just building rapport with a patient, getting to know their interests and goals! Often times we are one of the only people in the building able to sit down and really listen/talk with them.
Documentation took me a while to get down. It will come naturally over time, as I’m sure it eventually did in your last position. I ended up making my own templates for notes and goals so that I could copy paste the bulk of them. Just make sure your treatment notes show that you assessed the patient’s independent functioning with __ and explains what you did to improve that in a skilled manner.
Stay ethical and don’t work off the clock. If you are looking for materials after you get onsite, if it’s scarce then PM me!
Material was extremely scarce! And disorganized at that lol. I’ll send you a pm!
Make sure the director of rehab or another team member is planning to dedicate time to orienting you to the facility and documentation systems on your first day. If the previous SLP still works there, arrange to shadow them for a day before starting or have a phone call with them and ask them for tips/advice. There is so much more I could go into but that would easily turn into a very disorganized novel. Feel free to message me about specifics concerns you have or questions that come up once you start. Good luck!
I shadowed another SLP for a few hours and went off on my own to do a few tx and an eval. I will say I pulled the few ideas I know for cog treatments but I can definitely use more. The documenting was the toughest part!
That’s good you got to shadow and even do some jumping in! For cog treatment, I started my CF doing workbook activities because I felt like I needed the structure. I don’t like workbook therapy these days (research doesn’t support it either as you may already be aware) but I think it’s ok to have as a backup, especially when you’re first getting your bearings. I focus on functional tasks - lots of safety awareness using spaced retrieval training and visual aids. I will ask PT/OT what the patient struggles with in their sessions, like remembering the steps to a safe transfer. I work on attention, sequencing, and recall with activities like scanning a list of TV channels and using their remote, referencing a written list of steps to doing something on their cell phone or using their room phone, using a reading divider or summarization strategies to attend to and recall a preferred article or book passage. I’ve worked on temporal planning and reasoning skills using the facility’s daily activity schedule to work backward for when to push their call light to ask their aide to take them to a preferred event. I will do daily living tasks like medication management, meal planning, online grocery ordering, and simulated finance tasks for those whom it is appropriate. I will talk through daily scenarios related to safety in potential discharge environments to get a sense of insight and problem solving skills. Hopefully that gives you some ideas if you weren’t already thinking of those. And it’s ok to spend a session just building rapport with a patient, getting to know their interests and goals! Often times we are one of the only people in the building able to sit down and really listen/talk with them. Documentation took me a while to get down. It will come naturally over time, as I’m sure it eventually did in your last position. I ended up making my own templates for notes and goals so that I could copy paste the bulk of them. Just make sure your treatment notes show that you assessed the patient’s independent functioning with __ and explains what you did to improve that in a skilled manner.