Life of an OT Student

Attention World!  I have found my calling; wheelchair basketball. I was given an opportunity through my neuro class in my school's occupational therapy program to go sit in on the Memphis Rollin' Grizzly's wheelchair basketball practice, and it was one of the most humbling experiences I've had in a while. My love of basketball drew me to this opportunity and that is why I decided to do one of my Neuro Notes on what I learned from it.  I started playing basketball in the second grade and for the next ten years I would dedicate myself to the sport almost year-round. For ten years I took for granted my well-able body and for 15 minutes at the end of practice I got to experience the game from a different perspective. Some of the players on this team were incredible athletes, despite their disability. A few of the guys were amputees that used a wheelchair full time and another had a prosthesis. The most inspiring player I met had been a college basketball player w

Today we had a documentation lab to give us a chance to gather materials and work on building our professional portfolio. Although we have not made it to the many of the contents the portfolio requires it's helpful to have this system established and organized. For me, I am a very disorganized person and tend to lose things very easily. So this will be a beneficial assignment for me to get my stuff together and have a place for all the important documents we will obtain throughout our time here at UTHSC. Hopefully this will be good practice and lead me in the direction of being a more efficient organizer.

Today Cameron facilitated a class discussion on the fictional character Will Traynor from the movie Me Before You. The character had had a life altering accident that took him from his successful and adventurous life and left him paralyzed from the neck down. We discussed what goals as therapist we would set for will discussing the psycho social aspect of how beneficial it can be to have a companion and some way to express their feelings to someone who can sympathize with what they are going through. For someone like will an occupational therapist could emphasize on adaptive equipment to improve his quality of life such as a swing to facilitate intimacy between two people. Complete independence in a quadriplegic isn't feasible but learning some tools to regain independence will help a client regain a sense of purpose one step at a time.

We were asked the question, "What does it mean to be a lifelong learner?". For one, being almost 23 and have been in school my whole life counts for something right? A lifelong learner means to me that you never give up on expanding your mind on the endless knowledge that this life has to offer. However, once we have become health professionals and are thrown out into the world as newly practicing occupational therapists, we will be required to be a life long learner through continuing education. I feel proud to be a part of a profession that strives to hold their professionals to a higher standard and requires them to never stop learning and growing. Once we are finished with school, our learning becomes more self-directed and we have the opportunity to go out and learn the things that excites us and sparks our interest. Since I decided I was going to be an OT, I've had the desire to work with trauma patients that have sustained a life altering injury. When watching a vi

This Netflix Original documentary follows Lotje, a young, active, adventurous 34 year old who sustained a hemorrhagic stroke leaving her with aphasia and the inability to communicate or read anything. The reason I chose to review this documentary for my neuro-note is because although strokes are common among older adults and its definite we will be working with a stroke patient at some point in our career, it is more rare to hear of someone having a stroke at such a young age in a relatively healthy young woman. After being released from the hospital Lotje finds herself in somewhat of an alternate universe her brain has created for her. She is seeing the world around her from a different perspective and is struggling finding who she is and her purpose after the accident. Lotje is determined not to become discouraged by this new obstacle in her life and checks herself into an inpatient rehab hospital where she works with occupational therapists, speech and language therapist, psycholog

Clinical reasoning, like many things in the OT profession has many gray areas and can vary from client to client. There are eight different types of clinical reasoning that will hopefully help you make the right decision for your client. Here are just a few styles of clinical reasoning that we as OT's: ·          Procedural reasoning- strategy OT uses to find out what procedure you will do and what order you will do them in. The OT process. ·          Diagnostic reasoning- relates to how the diagnosis effects the clinical picture. (a component of scientific reasoning.) ·          Scientific reasoning- focuses on the facts. ·          Interactive reasoning- Has a lot of exchange and dialogue with client and/or caregiver. ·          Narrative reasoning- Relying on story-telling to solve problems and come up with solutions ·          Pragmatic reasoning- Focuses on logistics (income, living situation, insurance) ·          Conditional Reasoning

In session 9B we learned about the basics of clinical documentation. The who, what, when, where, and why of clinical documentation guides you in the direction of creating a complete and thorough evaluation. This discussion led us to our discussion of SOAP notes which is an acronym for subjective (what they client says), objective (what the therapist observes), assessments (interpretation of the assessment), and plan (what intervention will be chosen for client). As therapist we will use soap notes in almost any setting we work in and it's important for many reasons to have a detailed soap note to help guide other therapist that may work with the client and for insurance purposes. If it wasn't documented it didn't happen.

With a bachelor's degree in therapeutic recreation I quickly learned what person's first language is, as we often worked with individuals with disabilities. However, after reading the article assigned for session 9a it came to me that I never really thought about it as much for people with a disease such as diabetes. You just always hear time and time again that someone is diabetic, but its the same case as if you were talking about a child with autism you wouldn't want to describe that child by saying they are autistic as it is limiting their identity by the disability. I know so many people in my life that do not know the first thing about person first language and I believe that it should be something that is taught to kids at a young age because kids as well as adults sometimes don't realize how something they say affect those around them.

Professor Jamie Flick came and gave us an enthusiastic presentation over health promotion, literacy and prevention. One thing that intrigued me about her presentation was the section that covered health people 2020 which closely aligns with the OT profession. Their overall mission was to create a society that promotes people to live long healthy lives by identifying problems, increasing awareness and understanding of health and the prevention of disease. One of the overarching goals that I felt would be a good way to advocate for the need of occupational therapy is to promote quality of life, healthy development, and healthy behaviors across all life stages. OT's can provide the information need to individuals looking to improve their lifestyle and lead healthier lives.

I have always had an interest in working with trauma patients in Occupational Therapy. The human brain is an amazing thing and how it can sustain such injury and recover is somewhat of a miracle. However, TBI's can change you. My boyfriend's step dad acquired a TBI after being bucked off a mule on a pavement road. It took months of recovery and he was able to return back to work but he has told me first hand he lost many of his friends due to his accident because people said he changed and didn't know how to act around him. I've talked to him first hand on his experience because the accident happened before I knew him so to me he's just then same sweet Kevin I've always known. Kevin has told me that this has affected his confidence and he doesn't see the same person when he looks in the mirror anymore. He also lost his sense of smell which affects his taste and he doesn't even like the same foods as before. I just feel that people should be more aware