Portfolio

April 8,2017

Madelyn Hendry

COMM202 Instructor

Sir Sandford Fleming College

Peterborough ON, K9J 7B1

Dear Mr.Randall

The attached portfolio, which you requested on Friday April 7th, is a showcase of my best writing over the Winter 2017 semester. Within this portfolio, you will find my discourse community write up, hydrotherapy report and my fouth blog post.

The first writing sample I am using is the discourse community write up. The discourse community  write up helped me with communicating and interviewing other horsemen. By being able to do this I will then be more prepared for the next time I have to interview someone. This write up was very beneficial and will help me in my future career because, as an OTA & PTA, I need the communication and documentation skills to be able to chart about patient progression in an organized fashion. “Exceptional writing reflects organized, multi-stage composition that demonstrates growth in clarity and fluency” (Randall, Thomas 2017 Discourse Community Analysis Rubric).

The second item you will find is my blog post four. This blog was about how I am contiuning my education in the right direction. This pice of writting has shown my expressive side of my communication skills. By writing blogs it is very helpful and beneficial to be able to learn how to write with expression. I am able to write about my journey and my feelings towards my education. In this blog I also explained how I have learned to look at faliure in a diffrent way instead of giving up “I am excited for my next chapter in my education and looking forward for success and I will now look at failure as an opportunity to do better.” These skills will benefit me in my future career because I need to be able to have very good expressive communication when I am encouaging patients to participate in exercises.

The third item you will find in my portfolio is the hydrotherapy write up. This assignment was about an activity we participated in with a physiotherapy assistant. During the activity we learned what a hydrotherapy class is like and the role of an assistant. In the write up the following questions needed to be answered; define hydrotherapy and its benefits, outline the principles of water that affect exercise in pools, outline a typical hydrotherapy sessions including your experience, what clients would hydrotherapy be contraindicated for, how did the pool therapy help your understanding of hydrotherapy and the role of the assistant and what did you like and dislike about this learning opportunity. In this write up it shows communication skills because it was an activity where you had to listen and ask questions in order to finish the final write up competently. This write up could help me in my future career because it helped me to learn how to actively listen which, as an assistant, you need to be able to do.

I hope you enjoy my writing samples, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Yours sincerly,

Madelyn Hendry

Discourse community

Introduction

I am writing the report to familiarise and provide information to the public about my discourse community equestrians. I will be talking about a variety of things in this write up, but I will mostly be focusing on how I can educate and welcome new comers to get involved in the equestrian community. I have recently interviewed, and have gotten further information about this community from, a member that has belonged to this community for a very long time, this information will be very important. I will also give my recommendations in this write up.

Background

My discourse community is a group that comes together educates each other and provides one another with important information and feedback. The members in the equestrian community all share one important thing, we all either own or enjoy the company of our horses. There is a unique language and body language us equestrians use, for safety or either pointers at shows.

Belonging to the equestrian community can feel overwhelming at first because your dealing with such a large animal and there are specific techniques you need to be aware of, that can be very difficult to remember. The equestrian community has been around a very long time and to say there is many different riders such as dressage, hunter jumper, western and luxury riders, we seem to all come together as one and tell each other our stories. As I researched I have found two different places where the equestrian group has originated from, England and the West I believe there are two different origins because English riding an western riding are very different from each other. Today the equestrian community is spread all over the world and horses are used in many different disciplines, for example many people might not know but horse back riding is very therapeutic, and can be a very helpful thing for people suffering from mental health problems.

Research and Analysis

There is no known number of the amount of people that belong to the equestrian community because its spread across the world. The equestrian community that I belong to is around 20 people or so and it ages from 2 years old up to 72. We are a very close group of people and we come together for many different things such as a horse’s health, rider’s health, riding courses, shows or just a potluck to celebrate how thankful we are to be able to own such a great animal. As I was saying we get together for many different things it all relates back to horses which is what our community is about. Our most recent meeting was on oral health for the horses it was a very important, because if your horse is not healthy orally they can’t eat nor can perform at there best because the bit will cause ulcers in their mouth.

At each meeting, we first off discuses new experiences we might have encountered or had our self. After we begin what we will be covering in the meeting together, we start right away. The meetings are sometimes hands on or orally depending on what we will be talking about. There is also a lot of communication involved in our meetings so everyone is on the same page, a lot of people like to ask questions to get feedback.  A very interesting thing about the equestrian discourse community is that, like I said all our topics we cover lead back to the horse.  The horse is a very important to our community because with out them our community would not exist.

Conclusion and Recommendations

There is a lot to learn about the equestrian community including the language the art of the skill and the animal its self. Three recommendations I would give to new people wanting to get into the equestrian discourse community is..

1. Start by finding out the basics of the horse and insure you really enjoy the animal, you could do this by researching, talking to a member of the equestrian discourse community, or by visiting or taking a riding.
2. By contacting a member of the community, they could become your mentor and teach you skills and the language of the equestrian community
3. Once you have decided to belong to the equestrian community ensure that you have picked the right group to join, attend their meetings and ensure you keep up with the most recent information

This is an amazing group to join and I hope the information I have provided has helped new and recent equestrian people.

Hydrotherapy Session Overview

Hydrotherapy is a way of using pools for exercises, to treat many different conditions. The temperature and the pressure of the water is a very beneficial to people’s body. Some other benefits to hydrotherapy is hydrotherapy creates temperature change and pressure change to the body, it also helps to relax the reflex effects which can let the body relax so the muscles aren’t tense while doing the exercise in the pool. Hydrotherapy is relevant to occupational therapy and physiotherapy because, during the hydrotherapy sessions the patients are working on exercises to help them with their conditions, this is relevant to physiotherapy because its helping with balance, strength, stretching and range of motion. Hydrotherapy is relevant to occupational therapy because it is helping the patients participate in group work and it can also help the patients work on their range of motion to be able to do their daily living activities for example “reaching on the top shelf to get a cup”. A typical hydrotherapy session first starts of by getting everyone into the therapy pool, after everyone is adjusted to the water temperature, usually a physiotherapy assistant will be out of the water teaching the class. After everyone is lined up in the front facing the assistant they then get started with exercises working on different parts of the body depending on their conditions. At the end of the hydrotherapy session they then do stretches to stretch out the muscles that were used through out the session. There are a few precautions you need to take before you let a patient participate in a hydrotherapy session, patients with acute conditions are not aloud to participate in any hydrotherapy sessions, patients also suffering from high blood pressure can do hydrotherapy because the heat of the pools can affect their blood pressure and can cause harmful affects to the patient. Another precaution that needs to be taken is with patients with cardiac problems they are only able to participate in the session for a short period because the heat can inflict their heart and could potentially cause a heart attack. Participating in the pool session has helped me get a better understanding of what the role of an assistant does during the session because I could participate and watch her progress her workout and the cool down as well which was very valuable to learn about. Something I really liked about this learning opportunity is that we could participate in the session many ways like we did a teamwork activity, individual and we could use different equipment that are used through out the pool activities. Something that could be improved in this would be able before the session go through the learning outcomes with the assistant running the session or can go and watch an assistant run a class.

As I Contiune my Education in the right Direction…

As I said in my last blog as we were in the middle of second semester, I had a change in my path, I have chosen to change my carer path. I have went through the process of guilt, perseverance and through out this I have learned that things happen for a reason.

I first found out that occupational therapist and physiotherapist assistant was not the program for me after I didn’t enjoy my clinical experience, then I didn’t pass a practical skills evaluation test, and from there I didn’t have much courage to continue. I still tried my best but I found no matter how hard I tired to enjoy the program and my studies I just couldn’t. It was a very tough decision to withdraw from the course because all the work I put into it, but I looked at it in a different way I now see it as I gained an experience from it all and education is never a waste of time.

After I knew that I didn’t want to be in the program any more I was back at the process of applying to new programs. The two programs I choose to apply to was Registered Practical Nurse and Personal Support Worker. I have chosen these programs because their still in the health care field which I want to be in and, there both a fast pass job that I know I will never get board of.

The next steps for me to get into these programs were to apply which I have successfully applied to both Algonquin and Fleming College. I have already heard back from both Fleming and Algonquin that I have been accepted in the Personal Support Worker program. The nursing program is waitlisted at Fleming, and for Algonquin I am in the process of studying for there admissions test, I will be completing here at Fleming. Although this is a very stressful process I am still enrolled in various courses at Fleming that I need to also focus on.

I am excited for my next chapter in my education and looking forward for success and I will know look at frailer as an opportunity to do better.