Week 4- #2: The deaf patient

Today I was referred a patient that had been transfered from another ward that needed to continue with his mobilisation. I got a handover from a fellow physio, and i was extreemly apprehensive about seeing this patient as the physio said that he lies on his bed with his covers pulled over his head, he is very deaf, and has sworn and been abusive to most of the staff....excellent! Anyway i approach him with serious caution. I walked into his room and he had his covers pulled over his heads, so he couldnt hear or see me walk in, so waking him was going to be quite a startle for him. Anyway I did it, and he was not to happy at all! I tried to explain i was physio and he needed to come for a wlak with me, but no luck "i need new batteries for my hearing aids" GREAT! So i thought the only way im going to communicate with him is by writing it down. So i wrote down that i was from physio and went and got his frame, and straight away he understood and stood up and started walking. So i thought the hard part was over, but I was then struggling to be able to communicate with him while he was ambulating. I had to use signals to tell him to stop and turn. To my relief he wasn't as difficult as i thought he would be, but he may act differently tomorrow.
I thought i dealt with the communication barrier well, adopting non-verbal skills such as understandable signals, and writing complicated things down, which made something that could be very difficult, acutally quite easy and straightforward!
Until he gets his hearing aids sorted im going to have to continue with these communication skills and hopefully he will just assume that when im in his room it means going for a walk!