My senior year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama I started a job as a therapy aide at a local outpatient clinic. I loved the atmosphere and the fast pace as it was a very busy clinic with often times 10 patients an hour between 3 therapists and 2 PTAs. Often times every client's session started with preparatory exercises such as the arm/leg bike, pulleys, fluidotherapy machines, and more. As I was working there I saw the purpose to these exercises to warm up the muscles before therapy sessions. Now that I have spent three months in OT school, I see there might be better activities to engage the clients in and make their hour sessions more worthwhile and motivating. I wonder if the therapists used these preparatory exercises because they were so busy and could not work the entirety of the hour one-on-one with the clients, forcing them split their time between themselves and prep exercises. I thought the busier the clinic was the better business they were running. However when that is the case, are they keeping the client's needs first and maintaining a client-centered practice? I respect and admire the therapists I worked under for that year, and I always wanted to work at a clinic with the same values and atmosphere myself one day. However, I can now reflect on that experience and hopefully take the knowledge I have learned since then to take with me to my future practice that might be a little different from their practice.
For my first Neuro Note, I watched a few videos from Lindsey Becker's YouTube channel. Lindsey is a woman with spina bifida and happens to be this year's Ms. Wheelchair Tennessee. She uses a wheelchair in her everyday life, and posts videos on YouTube about how she adapts and modifies her environment to continue living a normal life. The videos I watched included "Home Adaptations," "Wheelchair user Mazda RX-8 with adaptive hand controls," and "PSA for Package Delivery Couriers for Wheelchairs." I chose to watch Lindsey's videos for this assignment because I was just informed she will be coming to UTHSC's campus as a SOTA guest speaker. We also discuss home modifications in class, and I wanted to see what that looked like in an actual home. In the first video, Lindsey walked the audience through all the modifications in her home including two ramps, shower and closet remodels, as well as kitchen remodeling plans. It was eye-opening...
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