While I wait to take my boards, I still work as a tech and today I had a 1:1 patient.
She was in immense pain all day. Breast cancer with Mets to bones and liver. Also a severely altered mental status post-fall. However, she couldn’t get anything really strong until after a brain MRI. Which her children wouldn’t return calls to consent for.
After she got a bit of oxy with no relief, I asked myself “What did I learn in nursing school for this?” I got it! Guided imagery, meditation, and therapeutic touch. I get to work rubbing this lady’s back, playing some relaxing beach sounds, and getting her to take some deep breaths. Everything was coming together! My education was not for nothing!
Except none of it worked and she damn near swung at me.
Hi, I'm looking for women to cuddle with. I'm hispanic 5'1" and have short hair. I have one dog, I love art, basketball and hiking. I enjoy listening to music or watching a movie while cuddling.
Hey folks. Apologies if you’ve heard this before, BUT as an (ADHD-diagnosed) educator, I’m currently in a training (e-lessons from the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development) that is teaching me about therapeutic touch and how much our brains need it.
Studies have shown that the right kind of touch with a little firm pressure increases dopamine and/or serotonin, and decreases cortisol, and can help somewhat relieve ADHD (and other disorders— even Alzheimer’s) symptoms.
Some ideas IF you’re interested in trying out healthy touch as a mental/emotional hack:
-
(I know many of us are broke right now, but...) When COVID risk has gone down, get a massage if and when and as often as you can afford it (maybe ask for massage gift certificates/money for your next birthday or holiday— that’s what i’m gonna do!).
-
Hug family members and friends (in your same household if your area is still social distancing) — or ask them to hug you a little tighter and longer than usual—- even side hugs can be beneficial!
-
Ask/allow a trusted partner, friend, or family member (again, in your same household if b”necessary) to massage your shoulders, arms, hands, feet etc. as it feels comfortable to you. — employ these ideas somewhat regularly for long lasting and consistent effects... and you can always return the favor! That’s good for you, too!
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If you can’t get close to humans right now, spend some time petting your pet. He/she/they may love the attention and your brain will love the effect. Remember to be gentle and kind; pets are people too (well, they’re not, but... you get it).
See, one of the harmful side effects of COVID we maybe don’t think of as much is the fact that social distancing is keeping our brains from getting the chemical hit they need. It’s ok to find safe ways of getting it.
Remember to let the person touching you know if you are feeling uncomfortable with the touch! Its ok to walk away, naturally. In fact, It’s entirely ok if this method doesn’t feel right to you and you decide not to do it.
Happy functioning! And happy Friday!
Thanks in advance for reading my post.
This might be too specific for this community, but I'm going to ask anyways and let you guys tell me if I need to post this elsewhere :).
I am attempting to learn TensorFlow-Probability. My first attempt is to replicate the 'Therapeutic Touch' example from the Doing Bayesian Analysis by Kruschke. The PYMC3 code that I am referencing is here:
https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/JWarmenhoven/DBDA-python/blob/master/Notebooks/Chapter%209.ipynb
The data is very straightforward. There is a variable 'y' which is binomial (1 or 0) and a variable 's' which is a grouping variable ( 28 different groups ). The PYMC3 code looks like this:
>practitioner_idx = df.s.cat.codes.values # an array containing integers 1-28
>
>practitioner_codes = df.s.cat.categories.size # a single integer 28
>
>with pm.Model() as hierarchical_model:
>
>omega = pm.Beta('omega', 1., 1.)
>
>kappa_minus2 = pm.Gamma('kappa_minus2', 0.01, 0.01)
>
>kappa = pm.Deterministic('kappa', kappa_minus2 + 2)
>
>theta = pm.Beta('theta', alpha=omega*(kappa-2)+1, beta=(1-omega)*(kappa-2)+1,shape=n_practitioners)
>
>y = pm.Bernoulli('y', theta[practitioner_idx], observed=df.y)
What is the best way to go about turning this into a TensorFlow-Probability code? I tried this:
>def group_therapy(pract_group):
return tfd.JointDistributionSequential([
>
>tfd.Gamma([0.01, 0.01], name="Kappa"),
tfd.Beta(1., 1., name="Omega"),
lambda prior_omega, prior_kappa: tfd.Independent(
tfd.Beta(concentration1=prior_kappa[..., tf.newaxis] * tf.ones([n_pract])[tf.newaxis,...],
concentration0=prior_omega[..., tf.newaxis] * tf.ones([n_pract])[tf.newaxis,...],
name="Theta"),
name="treatment_effect"),
>
>lambda prior_theta: tfd.Bernoulli(
tf.gather(prior_theta, pract_group, axis=-1),
name = "Root"
>
>)
])
where
>pract_group = tf.convert_to_tensor(df['group'], dtype=tf.int32)
resp_y = tf.convert_to_tensor(df['y'], dtype=tf.float32)
n_pract = 28
But I currently get a type-error from Bernoulli telling me that I am missing a required positional argument 'rate'; which I find puzzling, as 'rate' is not named a
... keep reading on reddit ➡There are a few good threads in here, but here's the meat of it:
These practitioners need to be banned from deriving a living from complete bullshit.
Some guy comparing TT to RBI: The average rbi in baseball is 30% therefore no one is allowed to say they are athletes. It's no better than a coin flip.
My soon to be wife, a recent graduate with a BSN and who is an RN now, was allowed to take therapeutic touch as some sort of elective towards her degree. This was after her pre-reqs, and full on into nursing school.
TT is complete horseshit, and there is science to back that up, how in the hell could a legitimate school allow that? The course wasn't on campus or through that school, but may students took it as an easy A as did she, even though it meant driving a ways out of town to a different school for the finals and a few classes.
Is that common, is it something thats generally not cared about in the medical field?
Just something that has bugged me for over a year now. She was allowed to practice on her cat as homework for christs sake! How is that medicine?
