Brook Nguyen

Senior Occupational Therapist

Prince of Wales Community Health - Transitional Aged Care Program

“As an Occupational Therapist in the Transitional Aged Care program, the core of what I do is helping people get back to their daily activities like showering, dressing, eating, cooking, or whatever they want to do after a hospital stay. On initial discharge home we see them from day zero for 12 weeks to transition them back to normal life.

I’m privileged to see them at home and see their progress. I’ve had clients shed a few tears with us not coming back out when the program finishes. Three months is a long time to get to know them. You see them at home at their best, it’s not at their crisis point in the hospital.

The most challenging thing can sometimes be client motivation. Sometimes clients agree for the program to go home from hospital and then they get home and they’re not as motivated to do the therapy with us. We try to use coaching to get them to see the benefit of engaging, so they can recover and prevent another hospital stay.

When I’m not at work, I do pole dancing as an exercise. I’ve been doing it for a few years. I had seen some acquaintances do it and it looked sort of fun, so I gave it a go and fell in love with it.”