Siriraj Hospital

This week, our focus has been on the Siriraj Hospital. It’s one of the biggest public hospitals in Thailand and it is known for being the place that handles more severe cases.

We‘ve seen wings for general medical cases, cardiac rehab, pulmonary rehab and tomorrow will be for stroke rehab.

Generally each wing of a unit has 20 beds, and each wing is either all men or all women. In the wings, they prioritize patients by severity, with the first row being most severe (and closest to the nurses’ station), a middle row of more stable patients, and a final row of patients who need the least assistance. The wing is a large, open area with some plastic dividers (for patients who have contact precautions) or curtains that can be pulled around the bed for privacy. The areas we’ve seen haven’t included private rooms for patients.

We went to a pulmonary rehab exercise session, which they hold twice a week (moderate intensity aerobic exercise for 30 minutes and some resistance training at 80% 10RM). The therapist leading it is also conducting research on cognitive impairment with COPD patients. She told us that she’s found that approximately 50% of COPD patients have a mild cognitive impairment when they begin her program according to the assessment scale she uses, but that exercise has created a significant difference in scores, taking patients out of the category that denotes mild cognitive impairment.

They also let us try out their body comp machine, which was pretty cool! Here is some of the equipment they used (including a dumbbell shaped container meant to be filled with sand or water that sells for ~$2 !!):