Subtle touch

We discovered this week that Linda can't buckle her seat-belt in the dark. She always does the buckle with her stronger right hand. However, the sensation in her right has always been a bit "off" since the stroke and that makes it difficult to do things by touch.

The OT was glad that we thought to mention it, and he had an exercise to work on her touch. He placed lots of different objects in a bowl of uncooked macaroni and the had to retrieve them by touch. The easiest object was a clothes-pin, but she did well with a variety of objects. She has good sensation (if not normal) and he expected her to improve with similar kinds of practice.

There were a couple of funny moments during the exercise. When she was asked to identify a pencil by touch, she couldn't. The therapist asked her to describe the shape, and she said, "Well, it's shaped like a pencil." We laughed at that. She also couldn't identify a crayon by touch (she thought it was a dowel). I suggested that she see what it smelled like, but she said, "It smells like food."


In other news, her walking in PT was dreadful. I guess you can't expect every day to be a step forward.