OT: Create - Motivate - Inspire

     The book, Inside the O'Briens, is a captivating, informative, and insightful read! I would absolutely recommend this book, especially to individuals working in health care. It shines a light on Huntington's disease that you don't necessarily get from a textbook. I especially was interested in the decision making process for receiving genetic testing. Often times we assume everyone who is at risk for developing HD would want to be tested. However, this book reveals the struggle and emotional turmoil from finding out your test results as well as deciding not to know. It is important to remember that a positive or negative gene result not only impacts that individual who was tested, but everyone else involved in that person's life. I thought the book also did a great job of portraying the depression and sense of hopelessness that accompanies HD. As a (future) health care professional, I feel like it can be easy to focus on the physical manifestation of symptoms includ...

The short video I decided to watch for this neuro note came from: https://alsnewstoday.com/2018/02/01/alex-coriells-journey-with-als/?utm_source=ALS+News&utm_campaign=856209f0b7-RSS_FRIDAY_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0593028b75-856209f0b7-71721017 I knew we would eventually be talking about ALS, so I decided to get somewhat of a head start on this diagnosis. Also ALS has gotten some recent attention over the past 5 years due to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, so I decided to learn more about this diagnosis. This video was about Alex Coriell who was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 29. His wife documented his journey with ALS and how she was able to care for him throughout his journey. I was absolutely astonished at how quickly his diagnosis progressed. I think one big take away for almost all diagnoses is that they can and will present in variations with different timeframes of progression. This video was also very inspirational. Many times throughout the...

     I chose to look into the Life Balance Model developed by Kathleen Matuska. This would fall under an occupational therapy model of practice (MoP). The idea behind this model is that life balance can be achieved when an individual participates in activities that are meeting their basic physical needs, that are rewarding and include self-affirming relationships with other people, are engaging, challenging, and make the individual feel competent, and establish meaning and identity to that individual. This is all included in the individual's context and environment. This model is applicable for all populations (all ages and all disabilities, or no disability). "Functional" according to this theory would be that an individual does participate in activities in their daily life that allow them to have life balance (according to the aspects of life balance listed above). An occupational therapist could measure stress or life satisfaction (using a questionnaire) because the th...

     I decided to watch a TED talk titled, "Can the damaged brain repair itself?", presented by neurologist Siddharthan Chandran. This video was approximately 16 minutes long. I decided to select this TED talk because I remembered being informed in our Neurological Aspects class that nerves in the brain and spinal cord cannot regenerate themselves, therefore the damage done in these areas is permanent. Also, there is no real known "cure" for individuals who are suffering from a neurodegenerative disease such as ALS (motor neuron disease) and multiple sclerosis. The speaker displayed an image of a brain with multiple sclerosis. There were "holes" in the scan that represented the degeneration of motor neurons in the brain. However, over time, there were some "holes" that had started to fill back in fully or at least partially. The speaker stated that the problem is not the inability of the brain to repair itself from the damage, but that the brain ...

     One big concept that I really learned from this session is the importance of health literacy. This relates to individuals understanding and managing their health care. As a future OT, it is a priority to explain everything in very lay terms. Additionally, it is important to encourage the clients to ask questions to check for understanding.      I also learned about the social determinants of health which include education, peace, shelter, food, income, social justice, stable ecosystem, and sustainable resources. Before this session, I never really thought about these issues and the way they can impact an individual's overall health. These issues are important to look in to as health professionals as they direct the way that we care for our clients and even prevent certain health problems from occurring in the first place.

     One rotation of my observations in undergrad was with an occupational therapist who worked primarily in acute care at the local hospital in the city that I was in school. One of the first things that I noticed while shadowing in acute care is that the hospital is all about efficiency. They try to send patients home or to another facility as quickly as possible. Essentially, if the person is stable (even right after surgery), they are already discussing with the client and their family about the next steps for rehabilitation outside of the acute floor. It also really surprised me that we would go visit a client for therapy even the same day after they had undergone surgery just to get them moving a little bit. The clients that we visited came from all kinds of backgrounds and had numerous types of surgeries or diagnoses which made acute care very interesting and fresh. The sphere of practice was mostly biological, although I do feel like there were some patients that ...

     One activity that I chose that really made me think was the TED Talk by Michael Nesmith in regards to the concept of universal design. His main point was encouraging everyone to use and push forward this concept of "universal design" which he defined as "the design of products and environments to be useable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design". This concept is so relevant to me as a future occupational therapist where our mindset is not on the disability but on people as a whole. Occupational therapists seek to eliminate barriers to allow people to live the life they desire including participating in any activity they may enjoy.          Additionally I listened to the "Au-Some Swimmers" podcast which was very interesting! I have never really thought about the large need of the role of OTs in helping children on the autism spectrum learn how to swim. I liked how they addressed ...