OT: Create - Motivate - Inspire

We had a guest lecturer come speak on the topic of driving as it pertains mostly to the older adult population. He is a Certified Driver Rehab Specialist (CDRS). One of the takeaways I got from the lecture is how you must assess many different physical and cognitive components to determine if someone should proceed to an on-road assessment. For example, the CDRS will first assess visual components such as acuity, processing, and attention. Then they will assess cognition (MoCA, Mini Mental, SLUMS, etc.), range of motion, manual muscle testing (such as grip strength), along with many other performance skills. Something else I took away from the lecture is how we can offer some simple strategies (without necessarily being a CDRS) to individuals that are having some driving difficulties that are very cost-affordable. Some of these modifications include an enlarged rear view mirror, adding blind spot mirrors, and putting a dark colored towel on the dash to reduce glare. One interventio...

The guest lecturer from today was very knowledgeable and enlightening. I did not have a strong background in nutrition nor did I realize the extreme importance of nutrition, especially in regards to the elderly and those that have been hospitalized. One takeaway from today's lecture was the importance of focusing on clients' quality of life over simply surviving. Especially in the acute care setting, if our goal is just to stabilize a patient and send them home, we have missed a huge part of our job! We should be focusing on making sure that the patients are able to get back to the things that are meaningful to them instead of having residual symptoms of being hospitalized including weakness and fatigue. Most if not all of these residual symptoms can be prevented with proper nutrition. One thing I did not know prior to this lecture was that patients leaving the hospital should be on an increased caloric intake and supplements at least 6 months following discharge including re...

The thing that surprised me the most after comparing the glyphs I made my first year and last week were how similar they were. I was surprised that my views on leadership had not changed very much after learning many things in OT school. Both pictures had a square head which means I believed and still believe that leadership can change and develop over time. This mostly stems from my leadership position with RKSTC, as I feel like I am not naturally a leader but have developed skills over time to make successful in my leadership role. One thing that changed was my eye shape. This shows that I originally believed that the majority of OTs are leaders but I now believe there are a fairly equal number of leaders and non-leaders. This belief stems from my fieldwork experiences. I believe you can either go the extra mile for patient care and be a leader or you can just do the minimum in your job and be a non-leader. The number of eyelashes on each of my glyphs were the same. I remembered 4/5...