mOTivation with mikayla

After listening to Glass Half Full's "Nature- Based Therapy" podcast, I am once again amazed at how versatile and adaptable the profession of occupational therapy is. I chose this podcast not knowing it had anything to do with the pediatric population, but I quickly learned it could have great benefits on early development. Getting to the roots of occupational therapy, therapy that doesn't feel like therapy is the most beneficial. Especially for children, who shake with excitement when it's time for recess, going outside and using the environment as a makeshift therapeutic media is perfect! A child's role is to be a child and the occupations involved are playing outside, socializing with others, and learning. The learning done in the classroom is different than the learning done outside the classroom and with others. This type of learning is where occupational therapy comes in! I like that inside the therapy room, there is structure and routine, but there is...

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To me, blissful ordinariness can't be defined by a definition but by experiences. Everyone experiences it and it looks different for everyone. An example that I think everyone can relate to is it's being reminded to not take your health for granted when you're sniffly and can't breathe out of your nose. The blissful ordinariness of being able to breathe easily. It's the things that we don't even think twice about doing until we can't do them anymore and have to come up with different ways to do them. Another example would be getting up in the morning and getting dressed, brushing your teeth, and making breakfast - things you do every day without thinking about the steps involved. When you are unable to mindlessly do your every day activities because of an injury or illness, occupational therapy is there for you. OT practitioners approach client intervention holistically, so we consider your roles, occupations, performance patterns in your specific environmen...

Outside of gross anatomy, we are learning about leadership and, specifically, how to think like occupational therapists. We are learning how to use the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework (OTPF) to guide our thought process to assess and treat clients. As practicing practitioners, we will look at individuals with a Top- Down approach, meaning we will look at them by their roles, goals, and occupations before their disabilities or restrictions. Beginning with an initial interview, we will converse with the client about their “client factors”, which include their values, beliefs, and spirituality, as well as their body functions and structures. By knowing this information, you allow the client to unknowingly guide their plan for treatment. We do this because there is substantial evidence supporting occupation- based functional activity. The client’s are more intrinsically motivated to engage in the activities that they said are important and worthwhile to them. Along with client fact...

I tend to be more partial to the pediatric setting only because my nephew is who inspired me to pursue occupational therapy in the first place. He spent a lot of his early development getting rehab services after suffering from a TBI at four months old. I remember watching my nephew fall behind developmentally and then be brought back up to speed and thinking "I have got to figure out what those therapists did!" While this definitely impacted my perspective on occupational therapy, I have always had a fascination with how individuals develop and what biological and environmental factors influence physical, mental, and social growth during development! Some of my favorite experiences were made while shadowing in the school system and outpatient pediatric clinics. While both settings were high energy and worked with the same aged population, they worked on different skill sets. In the school system, which is a public agency funded by the government, they were limited in the amo...

We looked at occupational therapy decade by decade and saw some substantial changes in the field along with other general aspects of life! If I have learned one thing about occupational therapy, it's that those in the field and the field itself are extremely adaptive and this was verified once more during these presentations. Starting in the 1940's there was a serious need for occupational therapists. There were more men returning from World War II than there were therapists to rehabilitate them. The eighteen months that it currently took to become a therapist was deemed too long for the number of therapists needed, so the War Emergency Courses of 1943 condensed this program into two weeks! I cannot imagine being a practicing therapist after two weeks, but the need was there and so were occupational therapists! One thing that really stuck out to me was how far education has come for individuals with disabilities. While racial discrimination and segregation were major issues i...

Dr. Kiesling, from the Boling Center for Developmental Disabilities, talked to us about the history of developmental disabilities and its importance in helping us educate and properly address the needs of our future clients when we become practicing occupational therapists. My heart aches for those individuals who had to endure the inhumane treatment forced upon them in the early 20th century. They weren't seen for who they were, and worse, they weren't even seen as people. They were burdens and inconveniences to everyone around them and the first and only option for treatment was sending them away to institutions. Knowing the dark and malicious history allows us to humbly appreciate how far we have come and visualize how far we need to go for this population. Something that really stuck with me from this presentation was the Capitol Crawl during the Disability Rights Movement that started in the 1970s. They did something truly eye opening. With their wheelchairs behind them,...