To Independence... and Beyond!!

[TEDx Talks] (2015, December 4). Facing death full of life | Danielle Valenti |TEDxBerkshires [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JRwCdmewl0 In this TED Talk, Danielle Valenti tells the story of her mother’s journey of living with Huntington’s disease and how it has impacted her lifestyle and outlook on life since her mother’s death. Her mother knew of her diagnosis of Huntington’s far before she told Danielle about it. Once symptoms began to arise, she finally told her, and Danielle’s mother eventually ended up in a nursing home. She told Danielle that she was going to stop eating and slowly take her own life so that she wouldn’t have to spend her life progressively dying in a nursing home. She also didn’t want Danielle to spend the rest of her healthy life driving to the home to take care of her if Danielle ended up having the Huntington’s gene as well. At this point, Danielle had not been genetically tested. Her mother ended up passing ...

        The Biomechanical Frame of Reference for Positioning Children for Function is a frame of reference theory that is most commonly used with children and/or adolescents who are not able to maintain a functional posture due to neuromuscular or musculoskeletal dysfunction. It aims at progressively enhancing the development of postural reactions in an individual by aligning the body and decreasing the demands of gravity. It also focuses on increasing an individual's functional performance by offering external support that will stabilize the proximal body in order to improve function in distal areas. This theory stems from the idea that motor patterns are developed from receiving sensory stimulation from the environment and that autonomic motor responses are essential for maintaining posture. Being "functional", according to this theory, would include being able to maintain an appropriate and functional posture due to appropriate muscle activity and neuromuscular/mu...

              This movie tells the story Ben, a former writer and newly-trained caregiver, who takes his first caregiving job with a teenage boy named Trevor. Trevor has been diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The two become great friends through spending countless hours together, and Ben begins to notice that Trevor has created a map of locations across the country that he would love to travel to. That leads to the process of Ben talking Trevor's mother into taking him on a road trip across the country to see landmarks such as the World's Deepest Pit. Along the way, they pick up a couple of friends who need a ride and all bond through simply accepting, including, and caring for one another. Although Ben is fighting personal battles of his own, including his son's death and wife's desire for divorce, he finds purpose, friendship, and joy in being Trevor's caregiver. The two become inseparable, and the movie ends with them making it to the Worl...

        In today's class, one topic I learned about was health literacy and how it applies to occupational therapy and our clients' lives. I have never really thought about the fact that everyone may read on different levels of skill and expertise. Therefore, we must take that into account with every client we come into contact with (no matter what their age may be). A client could even appear to understand what I am talking about when, in reality, they are not retaining any information I am giving them. This is why it is so important to ask my client is he or she understands why we are doing therapy and if he or she has any questions. Working with our clients is a partnership, and our time spent with them should be viewed as that.          Secondly, I learned about the determinants of health and how our health is not only based off our biological and physical factors but it also is related to our social environment, physical environment, an...

When gaining my observation hours prior to applying to OT school, I remember a certain instance in which I was observing an OT working in a school system. She was very often working with students who had been diagnosed with ADHD and was working to improve their attention and behavior in class. Before each of her OT sessions with them, she would allow them the chance to maneuver through an "obstacle course", which would consist of walking across a balance beam, crawling through a tunnel, swinging on a swing, and jumping into a huge bin of foam blocks. The children would do this several times, and then the OT would tell them that it was now time to sit down and work on some things with her. While some kids would find it difficult to transition from playing on the obstacle course to sitting down and doing work, most would understand that their "play time" was over and that it was now time to work and complete some tasks. In the moment, I really did not understand how t...

         After listening to the TED Talk "Why We Need Universal Design," my eyes were opened to the concept of universal design and how it applies to everyone and not just to those with a disability. I liked how Michael Nesmith said that every single one of us has a disability, no matter how temporary, permanent, mild, or severe it may be, and that is what unifies us as humans. I thought it was incredible that, despite his disability of being deaf, Michael used an interpreter to give an entire TED talk (which ironically covered disabilities and universal design's role in that). I've never thought about the fact that disability drives innovation every single day, and how individuals like Michael who are deaf, blind, etc. must innovate unique solutions to their obstacles each and every day. They even have to change the style of their communication according to the setting they are in and who they are speaking to. That takes so much effort, and it is most defi...

The OTPF is a document that is published by the American Occupational Therapy Association that defines and explains the different components and aspects of the field of occupational therapy, what makes up the framework of the profession, and provides details on what all is considered and analyzed in the process of providing occupational therapy services to clients. The OTPF not only is used by OT practitioners themselves, but it is also a reliable resource for educators, researchers, OT students, and other healthcare professionals to refer to in order to build their knowledge of the field of occupational therapy so that they may increase their understanding of the profession and improve the quality of care for all who receive OT services. It can be considered the "bible of occupational therapy" in the fact that it is a consistent and uniform source of reference for OT practitioners that they can apply to their practice so that they can be confident in providing the most effic...