Sensing OT

A very important thing to remember as a practitioner is the AOTA Code of Ethics. This provides a guide line for OT's to help the recognize and resolve ethical dilemmas, practice at the expected standard, and educated their clients. There are seven principals that each address a specific aspect of the correct behavior. Principal 1: Beneficence OT practitioner will contribute to good health and well fare of the client. This includes treating the client fairly and equitably, advocating for services that are needed, promoting health and wellness, and to charge fees directly relating to the services provided. An example of this is helping a client who can no longer pay for services, giving them home therapy treatment but not charging them. Principal 2: Nonmaleficence The practitioner will not inflict harm on the client. This includes avoiding exploiting the client physically, emotionally, physiologically, socially, sexually, or financially. An example of this is referring a cl...

Today I was doing a workout class with one of my friends who is going to school to be teacher. Even though she is very educated, we both have two totally different areas of knowledge. During the class the teacher kept telling us to adduct and abduct our legs/arms, make sure our foot was flexed or extended, and so on. She also kept referring to our muscle groups in very specific terms. Anytime she would use this terminology, my friend would have to completely stop her workout and watch the instructor so she could make sure she was doing the right thing. At the end of the workout, I asked if she knew what any of those words meant and she told me she didn't and it made her ability to do the workout more difficult. I think very similar to health literacy. My workout buddy wants to be able to maintain her health, but it is made significantly more difficult by words that she does not know and does not necessarily need to know for her profession. The lack of clarity could lead her to no...

Ted Talk: Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly: Be passionate. Be courageous. Be your best.             I watched a Ted Talk on TBI about Gabby Gifford, a congresswoman, and her husband, Mark Kelly, point of view. Gabby was shot in the head and is still recovering from her injury. This was a good way to learn first hand about what it is like to experience a traumatic brain injury. This Ted Talk helped me understand better what is like to live with a traumatic brain injury. Gabby says that the worst part of her injury is not being able to communicate her thoughts and feelings, due to her aphasia. When she first began her recovery, she was attached to the word “chicken”, which her and her husband now laugh about. She is unable to move her right arm, yet she’s more concerned about her lack of communication. I found this to be very interesting, because both of those things are so difficult to deal with, yet she’s more concerned with c...

I have been in OT school for four months and I find it amazing how well my OT skills are beginning to form. This morning I was in the living room with my family and a little boy came on the TV who did not have fully developed arms. He had learned how to play basketball and was really good at it, even though he was much more limited than his teammates. The interviewer asked the boy why he would not just play soccer instead, because that would make a lot more sense. The light in the boys eyes dropped and he looked at the interviewer and told him that he loved basketball. I was immediately baffled by the fact that the interviewer would even say that to a child. Why should he have to play soccer if that's not his favorite sport? What is so wrong with him adapting to play basketball? While I was expressing my thoughts and concern about this interview my dad looked at me and asked why it was such a big deal, because it does make sense for him to play soccer instead. I explained to my...

When I first began shadowing occupational therapist, I remember meeting a girl who had recently graduated. She was very nice and constantly told me how much she loved her job. Towards the end of the day, I heard her in her office on the phone saying "the only bad part about this job is all the documentation". I have always wondered about what makes it so bad. Regardless of how tedious and annoying it may be, documentation is a very important aspect for being an OT. This is crucial for ethical and legal reasons. Documentation is always important for insurance companies. If a practitioner is not properly documenting, their lack of proof could be the defining line of an insurance company continuing or discontinuing payments. It is also important to be able to efficiently and accurately treat the clients, by having the details of their previous sessions. For me, I think one of the most important reasons to document is to be able to fully remember what happened in a session. M...

Universal design is the design of products and the enviorment to be accessible by all people. I find this to be a very interesting concept, because the more I observe my enviorment, the more I notice how far away we are from this. When I first learned about universal design, one of my initial thoughts was that UT's campus was definitely universally designed. I mean, there's handrails on the toilets and ramps by the stairs, that's the prime example of a universal design. Under further inspection, I realized I was completely wrong. When you get off the elevator, there is a giant gap and uneven surface. How is a person in a wheel chair supposed to easily get over a gap, when the elevator is their only way to get on the upper levels. If you go into the general education building, you have to go up a ramp that has multiple turns. If you're in a wheel chair, making a turn in a tight area is not ideal. Even though places have designs that technically make is accessible, they s...

I always find it to be really interesting when I can see core concepts of occupational therapy at work in health care professions in general. When going through my grandmother’s Leukemia, I was able to see the importance of client-centered practice. One of the first things my father said when he met her oncologist was he was the only doctor they saw who actually cared about what my grandmother wanted. He was the one who worked with her when my family was deciding between home health and hospice. My family had a bit of a disagreement on which was the best option. Once he realized the constant disagreement, he ended up coming in and thoroughly explaining the difference before asking what she wanted. She wanted hospice and this ended up being the best option for her. My grandmother had many hospice nurses coming in and out, so while I was there I would have casual conversation with them. One day, a nurse came in and was talking to me about her sister, who also died of cancer. He...

While taking Foundations of Occupational Centered Practice, I have heard many times about the top-down approach. This is a phrase that is very crucial to occupational therapy. It is easy to understand and visualize the meaning of why this is important, but it does not really mean anything until you can see it put into action. While working on a case study project for spinal cord injuries, I spent some time with a friend who has a SCI and I asked him about his experience with OT. He spent three weeks at the Shepherd's Center and had therapy almost four hours a day, so he has had plenty of experience with OT's. When we began talking about his time with the OT's he told me one thing he liked the best about his therapist was that there were so many other people at the rehab who had it much worse than him, yet they were all treated the same. Treating on person the same as someone who is less injured or more injured than them is an amazing way to show that person that they ar...

I have previously written about my grandmother who has Leukemia. During this experience, I have learned a lot of inside details about the nitty gritty of being a care giver and what being client-centered really means. Another concept that has been demonstrated in front of me is the importance of health literacy. A long time joke in my family is that my brains definitely did not come from my father. My dad's side of the family are not the "college type". Every one of my cousins, my uncle, my father and my aunt work in the auto mechanic industry in some type of way. They are all very knowledgable and talented when it comes to repairing and understanding cars. While they all possess skills I cannot even comprehend, they do not understand half of the things I say when I talk about school. They are not dumb or uneducated by any means, but they are not health care people. This is nothing I have ever thought anything about until my dad's mother became ill. My mother and ...

Response to podcast: "Terrible, Thanks for Asking" - " Help Me Remember "  Living with a traumatic brain injury is a hard thing to do but like many diseases, sometimes it can take an even worse toll of the caregivers and loved ones. During this podcast, both sides were shown from Dawn who was living with a TBI and her husband, who had to take care of her. It was interesting to see how open he was to speak about his feelings and problems he faced because of her injury, all while she was in the room. One reason for this was because she specifically asked for honesty, but I think another explanation is because he knew she probably would not remember his very hard hitting thoughts and feelings. He stated that if he would have known she would be how she was today, he would not remarry her. Living with someone who has a TBI is difficult because you never know what they are aware of. It is almost like living with a person who changes every day. On top of the instability,...

I was inspired to become an OT while I was a camp counselor for the YMCA. One of the many children that inspired me was a little girl named Amber who had scoliosis. She was a seven year old who was about the size of a two year old and insisted on always walking even though she could not get around very easily. One aspect of her day that always upset me was that we had to keep her inside during play time outside. Part of the YMCA camp curriculum was at least an hour of outside play time each day when the weather permitted. Unfortunately, Amber's condition was so serve that a simple fall could potentially kill her. So while all of her friend's played outside, she sat at the doorway and colored or played with legos. She had experienced this problem all throughout her time at school, so she was pretty much accustomed to this problem, but for me I found it very upsetting. The school playgroup was anything but universally designed in any aspect. For this reason, I find the Equal Play...

Amy Mullins Ted Talk put societies view of the word "disabled" into a whole other perspective. She began the lecture by speaking about the synonyms and antonyms of the word disabled. All of these definitions were disappointing and disturbing to read as a person without a disability, it is hard to even imagine how a person who does have a disability would feel about these harsh words. Apparently from these definitions, our society views people who are disabled to be less than human. Words like "broken-down", "helpless", and "incapable" are some that were mentioned as common synonyms. The emotion in her voice as she spoke is enough evidence alone to prove how the societal view of disabled people effects the people who are suffering. This was a speech that she had obviously worked hard to prepare and she still could not hide the hurt she felt as she read these words out loud. Amy Mullins is a person who is more successful than most people you see ...