Nan with the Plan

Hi guys!  Congrats on finished our last Level I FW!  I have attached my Level I FW C debrief here:   https://youtu.be/a9DqkQ6mWos    I hope y’all have a great summer break, and I am looking forward to catching up when we return to class! P.S.  The washer/dryer is running in the background of my video, and I did not realize until after the fact :)  

This project felt the most “OT” out of all the projects in school so far.   Personally, I execute very well but sometimes struggle coming up with creative ideas, so this project was challenging for me.   Even though it was difficult, it was very rewarding.   Having a real client in mind while designing an intervention made it more meaningful.   The most significant thing I learned during this project was how important it is to stay client-centered.   While I was brain-storming, I would come up with an idea; then I had to ask myself if Craig would benefit from this intervention and would he stay motivated while doing it.   If the answer was no, I continued thinking.   Being client-centered may require more effort but will have bigger and better results because of that hard work.   I can see how busy practitioners can lose sight of this essential pillar of OT, but it is crucial to keep it in the forefront of therapy.   ...

Last night my OT class had the opportunity to watch a local D-I professional wheelchair basketball team practice.  The Rolling Grizzlies is an athletic group of men who compete in the highest wheelchair basketball division.  What an experience it was getting to watch them play.  Not only did we get to watch, but the players let us take their chairs for a spin!  I played basketball growing up, so I jumped at the opportunity to try out one of the chairs.  Instantly I realized the arm strength required to shoot and pass the ball from a seated position as well as the coordination needed for pushing the chair and dribbling the ball smoothly.  It is much harder than typical basketball.  These men played for an hour and a half with hardly any breaks.  This shows what great physical shape is required to participate in this game. During my undergraduate career, I was fortunate enough to take an adapted athletics course where we learned about all types of ...

"As ALS kills . . . Transfatty lives" Patrick O'Brien was diagnosed with ALS at a very young age of 30 years old.  Before this diagnosis, Patrick indulged in film making, mixing music, creating art, and drinking beer with his friends.  After his diagnosis he still continued to do just that.  He emerged from behind the lens and put himself and life with ALS in the spotlight.  He very accurately and creatively illustrated the progression of ALS. Watching this film through my "OT lens" helped me understand truly how fast some neurodegenerative diseases can progress and why it is important to always be thinking one step ahead.  One day Patrick was using a walker, and the next he was in a power chair.  This progression is something a practitioner must always consider in order to stay ahead of future obstacles.  I paid close attention to the transfers and bed mobility shown because we just recently learned those techniques in Biomechanics.  It ...

Reading Inside the O'Briens gave me so much insight on Huntington's Disease.  I have heard of it before, but did not know much about it until recently from the lecture in Neuro Aspects.  This book gave me a real life depiction of what it would look like dealing with HD or any neurodegenerative illness in my future clinical experience.  The author Lisa Genova describes HD as a family disease, and now I have more of an understanding for what that means.  The novel portrays every family members' different way of dealing with Joe's diagnosis.  Some go about their life normally like Meghan where others experience various amounts of guilt, grief, and mental instability like Rosie and Katie.  The O'Briens are faced with a dilemma of whether to find out if they have the HD gene or not, and each child goes about this process differently.   While reading this book, I kept asking myself how I think I would react if my family was in t...