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Hello, I'm Kim Hare,
I'm the moulding technician in the Berkshire Cancer Centre in Reading,
and I'd like to show you around the mould room.
We use two types of impression materials
to make masks for our patients.
We use plaster of Paris, this is a plaster of Paris bust of a patient,
which you then end up with a Perspex mask for them.
And we use an impression material called Allfit, which is this one here.
And the Allfit material is a plastic that's immersed into a hot water bath
and is moulded over the patient.
Out of both of these, the Allfit material, I would say,
is the easier for the patient to cope with
and it's the quicker one for us to actually make and move on to treatment.
This is the hot water bath that we use for warming the Allfit,
it's set at 75 degrees Celsius.
We bring the Allfit over, which is in a frame.
We put that into the hot water bath whilst we're positioning the patient.
We leave that in there for approximately two minutes,
where it becomes soft and pliable, it's not sticky at all.
Bring that out of the water, over to the side,
and just put out the excess moisture on the side.
We then bring this over to the patient, rest that over their chest area,
and then pull down over their facial features.
We then locate these poppers into the location holes here on the board.
I then rest my hands around their eyes and nose area
and any treatment areas around the neck, to form the mask.
And then I'm going to come in from behind you,
rest this over your shoulder area, and you'll just feel Hazel bring her hands –
I bring the patient into the mould room, introduce myself and my assistant,
and then we'll explain to the patient the procedure
that they're going to go through today
and cover any concerns or worries that they may have.
So, we're going to give you some radiotherapy to your larynx area.
You've already been through to our simulator
and we've decided on a position for your treatment,
which we want to replicate here in the room,
Hazel has asked me to do that.
I then bring the patient over to the treatment couch
and position them as they would have been positioned in the simulator
earlier in the morning.
So, nice and relaxed for me, go nice and floppy.
You're just going to find us just moving you over slightly.
Just feeling for your bones.
I have two lasers in the room that I use,
one that runs laterally across the patient and one that runs down the middle,
a sagittal laser.
The radiographers in the simulator, using X-rays and lasers,
will actually put some midline dots down the centre of the patient
to assist me in the mould room and line the patient up.
Any patient that comes in for treatment
needs to be in exactly the same position each time
and we need to be able to replicate that each time that they come.
Anybody who just lays down on the couch
would lay down in a different position.
It's also the reason why we actually have hard couches,
so there isn't any sag there or movement.
Get into the hot water bath.
Now, because we're treating you around your neck area,
just need to raise your chin up.
I'm going to take a small measurement there
just to make sure you are in the correct position.
- Are you okay? - Yes.
I see that the Allfit is ready.
I'm coming over.
If you'd like to close your eyes, a little bit warm coming across your chest area.
Put your hands on there.
Breathe normally for me.
That's lovely, well done.
Going right down.
I'm just going to hear those little poppers,
if you'd like to do your poppers on your side.
Okay.
It can be a little bit noisy.
Just feel coming in gently around your eye area and moving your head over.
Well done.
So, we're going to pop a fan on in the room,
you're just going to feel that blowing on your left hand side.
It just helps the air to circulate around.
The Allfit needs to stay on the patient for a good eight to ten minutes
to cool down,
so that it doesn't flex at all or change shape,
and there's a little bit of a shrinkage quality to it, as well,
so it is necessary for this time for it to cool down.
We just go up from the bottom.
Okay, so just pop that off.
- How are you? - That's okay, yeah.
- Yeah? - Nice and warm.
Not too unpleasant.