Fieldwork-Eve
As weird as this is for me to say, tomorrow starts (finally) my THIRD year of OT school, LAST year of school ever, and the day I've dreamed about since I was about 14. I love keeping track of things, looking through memories, so I'm hoping this blog will give me something to look back on over the next 12 months. Maybe I DO know some stuff. Maybe I CAN be a therapist.
This blog was named because one of my professors during my first year used this sentence. I can't even remember the context, and I don't even think it's that funny if you don't work in rehab or healthcare, but I laugh every single time. The title is for you, Creighton friends.
I arrived in Louisiana last Thursday ready to start my first 12 weeks of rotation. I thought now was a good time to start writing. Before we (this blog) and I (tomorrow morning at the clinic) begin, let's address a few important things.
1. What is occupational therapy?
I had at least one entire lecture on giving an elevator speech for this profession, because basically, nobody has any idea what we do. So here we go.
Occupational therapists work with all populations of people in healthcare. Although we know your medical diagnoses, we are more concerned with your occupational problems. Whenever you hear us say the word occupation, we are not talking about a job. We are talking about literally every activity that fills your day. Brushing your teeth, getting dressed, cooking a meal, yoga, gambling, swimming, taking a shower, driving. All occupations. We work with people who, through whatever circumstance, have disruption in their occupations, and we use those occupations as a means to rehab. An individual who has a stroke may need to relearn how to use one side of their body for their interest in working on cars - we use neurological theories to 're-teach' that side of the body how to do it's job. A child with autism may have difficulty participating in the classroom and staying on task, so we make visual schedules for them, help them learn to ask for breaks, and work on helping them regulate their sensory system. A mom may need to resume taking care of her children after a car accident, so we work on strengthening her body and teaching her techniques that may help her to conserve energy and move about safely to make bottles, pick up her children, or cook meals. Our job is, quite literally, help people participate in anything and everything they want to do by way of compensation or rehabilitation. With that...
2. So like, what do you DO?
Occupational therapists have three main jobs: rehabilitation, compensation, and education.
1. Rehabilitation/Habilitation: This is always the goal. Someone who has suffered a stroke, brain injury, car accident, etc., needs help getting back to a previous level of function. In kids, many times they are falling behind their same aged peers, so we want to help them to strengthen parts of their body with therapy. My little buddy Emma is working on strengthening almost all of the time so that she can navigate with her walker at school, get from her walker to her chair alone, and play with her friends at recess.
2. Compensation: This technique is usually used for people who have a condition that likely will not get 100% better, no matter how much therapy they receive. For example, a child with a spinal cord injury will likely not walk again. Although we can always try, and the brain is always changing, many people choose to compensate for their daily tasks via different types of technologies. We might write letters of medical necessity for a wheelchair, send a patient home with a sock aide or a reacher to help them around the house if they find themselves weaker than normal, or help a child who is nonverbal get an iPad that can double as a speaking device. Individuals with MS, Arthritis, Alzheimer's, or muscular dystrophy may need compensation techniques in order to minimize their difficulties from day to day.
3. Education: Although not usually a primary reason for a session, we always work this in. We might educate a client with COPD ways that she can take care of her cooking and cleaning independently. We might educate the spouse of an individual after a traumatic brain injury with what to expect in the future. We might educate a client on a home exercise program that can help their body to rehabilitate faster after a shoulder replacement. (Hi Dad)
Personally, I think I'd like to work with children who have been through trauma. I would like to work with the child in therapy but also work with the family to best understand how to take their child back home and live with the new circumstances. How do I bathe a child in a wheelchair if they are too big to lift? How will their social life be different? How will they still play sports? How do they dress them self? I also really enjoy all different sensory disorders - I might work with kids whose brains can't take in the information from their world in order to help their body navigate it. (Sensory Modulation Disorder) They can't look at a stair step and tell their leg "Ok, it is THIS high", and have their leg move correctly to get up the step. They trip and fall a lot, and appear pretty clumsy.
3. Why Louisiana?
Creighton gives me the fabulous opportunity to choose from several hundred sites both in and out of the United States for my rotations. We basically rank them, and, in essence, get placed at one of them. I was fine in any placement for the summer as long as it was pediatrics. In the fall, I'm living at home in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and in the spring, I'm at Dallas Children's Hospital.
The picture on the blog is my 20 year old sister, who is the reason that I fell in love with OT. My sister was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency at 11 years old. (This means that the muscles of her eyes don't move together to do the same thing at the same time. She couldn't read or really participate in any academic work with ease, play sports like basketball or soccer without closing one eye prior to this.) She received occupational therapy services and had lots of 'homework' to do. We stayed home alone in the summer, so I watched (and tried to encourage) her work with eye charts, pencil pushups, and Bal-A-Vis-X balls. She vaguely remembers something that I think is a Dynavision, where you sit in front of a large board and wait for the buttons to light up and you have to press them as quickly as you can. Sounds like a game of whack-a-mole, but it's actually really hard if you have double vision or oculomotor (eye tracking) issues. Although doctors told my parents she would never read, she is happy to report that nine years later she graduated high school with a 4.0 and is currently pursuing a degree in Biological and Agricultural Engineering. Rehab is cool. Occupation based rehab is even better.
I'm hoping I will actually be diligent about this over the next year. I was lucky to have a friend in OT school a year ahead of me, but who knows, maybe someone will find these helpful? Let it be known, officially, that today, on May 13, 2018, I start rotations tomorrow. I'm nervous. I'm pretty sure I don't know anything. I'm REALLY excited. But here we go!
This blog was named because one of my professors during my first year used this sentence. I can't even remember the context, and I don't even think it's that funny if you don't work in rehab or healthcare, but I laugh every single time. The title is for you, Creighton friends.
I arrived in Louisiana last Thursday ready to start my first 12 weeks of rotation. I thought now was a good time to start writing. Before we (this blog) and I (tomorrow morning at the clinic) begin, let's address a few important things.
1. What is occupational therapy?
I had at least one entire lecture on giving an elevator speech for this profession, because basically, nobody has any idea what we do. So here we go.
Occupational therapists work with all populations of people in healthcare. Although we know your medical diagnoses, we are more concerned with your occupational problems. Whenever you hear us say the word occupation, we are not talking about a job. We are talking about literally every activity that fills your day. Brushing your teeth, getting dressed, cooking a meal, yoga, gambling, swimming, taking a shower, driving. All occupations. We work with people who, through whatever circumstance, have disruption in their occupations, and we use those occupations as a means to rehab. An individual who has a stroke may need to relearn how to use one side of their body for their interest in working on cars - we use neurological theories to 're-teach' that side of the body how to do it's job. A child with autism may have difficulty participating in the classroom and staying on task, so we make visual schedules for them, help them learn to ask for breaks, and work on helping them regulate their sensory system. A mom may need to resume taking care of her children after a car accident, so we work on strengthening her body and teaching her techniques that may help her to conserve energy and move about safely to make bottles, pick up her children, or cook meals. Our job is, quite literally, help people participate in anything and everything they want to do by way of compensation or rehabilitation. With that...
2. So like, what do you DO?
Occupational therapists have three main jobs: rehabilitation, compensation, and education.
1. Rehabilitation/Habilitation: This is always the goal. Someone who has suffered a stroke, brain injury, car accident, etc., needs help getting back to a previous level of function. In kids, many times they are falling behind their same aged peers, so we want to help them to strengthen parts of their body with therapy. My little buddy Emma is working on strengthening almost all of the time so that she can navigate with her walker at school, get from her walker to her chair alone, and play with her friends at recess.
2. Compensation: This technique is usually used for people who have a condition that likely will not get 100% better, no matter how much therapy they receive. For example, a child with a spinal cord injury will likely not walk again. Although we can always try, and the brain is always changing, many people choose to compensate for their daily tasks via different types of technologies. We might write letters of medical necessity for a wheelchair, send a patient home with a sock aide or a reacher to help them around the house if they find themselves weaker than normal, or help a child who is nonverbal get an iPad that can double as a speaking device. Individuals with MS, Arthritis, Alzheimer's, or muscular dystrophy may need compensation techniques in order to minimize their difficulties from day to day.
3. Education: Although not usually a primary reason for a session, we always work this in. We might educate a client with COPD ways that she can take care of her cooking and cleaning independently. We might educate the spouse of an individual after a traumatic brain injury with what to expect in the future. We might educate a client on a home exercise program that can help their body to rehabilitate faster after a shoulder replacement. (Hi Dad)
Personally, I think I'd like to work with children who have been through trauma. I would like to work with the child in therapy but also work with the family to best understand how to take their child back home and live with the new circumstances. How do I bathe a child in a wheelchair if they are too big to lift? How will their social life be different? How will they still play sports? How do they dress them self? I also really enjoy all different sensory disorders - I might work with kids whose brains can't take in the information from their world in order to help their body navigate it. (Sensory Modulation Disorder) They can't look at a stair step and tell their leg "Ok, it is THIS high", and have their leg move correctly to get up the step. They trip and fall a lot, and appear pretty clumsy.
3. Why Louisiana?
Creighton gives me the fabulous opportunity to choose from several hundred sites both in and out of the United States for my rotations. We basically rank them, and, in essence, get placed at one of them. I was fine in any placement for the summer as long as it was pediatrics. In the fall, I'm living at home in an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and in the spring, I'm at Dallas Children's Hospital.
The picture on the blog is my 20 year old sister, who is the reason that I fell in love with OT. My sister was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency at 11 years old. (This means that the muscles of her eyes don't move together to do the same thing at the same time. She couldn't read or really participate in any academic work with ease, play sports like basketball or soccer without closing one eye prior to this.) She received occupational therapy services and had lots of 'homework' to do. We stayed home alone in the summer, so I watched (and tried to encourage) her work with eye charts, pencil pushups, and Bal-A-Vis-X balls. She vaguely remembers something that I think is a Dynavision, where you sit in front of a large board and wait for the buttons to light up and you have to press them as quickly as you can. Sounds like a game of whack-a-mole, but it's actually really hard if you have double vision or oculomotor (eye tracking) issues. Although doctors told my parents she would never read, she is happy to report that nine years later she graduated high school with a 4.0 and is currently pursuing a degree in Biological and Agricultural Engineering. Rehab is cool. Occupation based rehab is even better.
I'm hoping I will actually be diligent about this over the next year. I was lucky to have a friend in OT school a year ahead of me, but who knows, maybe someone will find these helpful? Let it be known, officially, that today, on May 13, 2018, I start rotations tomorrow. I'm nervous. I'm pretty sure I don't know anything. I'm REALLY excited. But here we go!
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