Augmentative Communication/Adaptive Technology Lab

Starting soldering – adaptive toy lab
Giant keyboard with different set-up

Kerri is using only the hat on her head to guide the mouse on the computer screen

Soldering.
Stephanie holding the soldering tool, it kinda looks like a curling iron doesn’t it?

We had an occupational therapy lab at the University of Memphis in their special technology lab.
We learned about different augmentative communication devices, as well as technology designed to assist people with low vision, one-handed typing, ergonomic typing, etc.

We also got to learn how to make simple switches to use with toys, so that we could adapt them so that even a child with very little function could at least press a giant button and have some control over their environment. We ran out of time but we did get to at least start learning this process, which included soldering!! We are going to finish the lab another time. I am excited. I want another occupational therapy tool in my toolbox – I know it’s unlikely I’ll do a lot of toy adaptation but it’s still neat.

Neuro, Destressing, lions and tigers and bears

Caption: Julie is having way too much fun in today’s neuro class. Everyone else is enjoying it as well. Emily isn’t, but that’s okay because she is sick.
——————
I was nice to myself today. I got up and wrote on a note “I will de-stress. I will work out today and I will be in a good mood”. I then “let it all go” and put it in a jar. I went to school in a good mood for the first time in a long time.

We had neuro (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation or something, I am too lazy to look up the title), then Pathology. We were given the easiest take-home test in the world, it was somewhat of an insult to our intelligence. I was done in way less than 30 minutes. But I’m not complaining, I have enough on my plate that I don’t need to add on massive Pathology tests to that.

Then I had 30 minutes to eat before I met Stephanie to work on our VALPAR presentation (an industrial rehab work sample assessment), then meet my community initiative leadership group to discuss our group paper, then met my research group along with the mentors to discuss the Tai Chi project, then worked out, then came home and treated myself to reading gossip online for about 20 minutes without feeling guilty.

I have about seven different things I’m working on right now, including a question on how the Motor Skill Acquisition Frame of Reference can apply to a hemiplegic child, some goals for a child with developmental dyspraxia, an occupational therapy evaluation form for a book character (I think I’m doing Temple Grandin), working on my ASD app, etc etc.

It’s 8:30pm and I am going to give my work another hour max, before GOING TO BED BEFORE TEN PM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ABOUT A THOUSAND YEARS. I’m totally turning off my phone since typically I’m up past midnight and fellow students will call me at midnight.

Check out the therapeutic handling lab video I put down below.
The picture today is from our Neuro lab when we were discussing different movement patterns and how they can be used therapeutically in OT. More to come on that later.

Some future blog posts in the works:
*”Playing” vs “working” (how others perceive occupational therapists)
*Prioritizing – Type A+ people in grad school.
*AAC Lab, VALPAR, more about Ribcage handling too

Therapeutic Handling Occupational Therapy Lab Demonstration

This is quite possibly the worst occupational therapy video ever made (due to my own stumbling, not my subject/cameraman). I was just trying to demonstrate some of the techniques we learned in our handling lab! I have a bad memory so I wanted it on camera to help me remember. Plus I wanted to show y’all the amazing handling skills I am starting to possess.

Basically you could use this more easily with a child, but it’s all about key points of control. Using just your hands in certain spots, you can manage to get someone from supine (think of holding a bowl of SOUP, i.e. hand cupped upward) to prone (belly down) to long-sitting to side-sitting to tall-kneeling etc until the person is standing. This is for someone who requires some assistance but can help at least a little bit.

Pros of this video:
It shows you key points of control
It’s amazing because it involves Brooke, me, and camerawoman Allison, plus Meg + other voices in the background

Cons:
I stumble and can’t remember exactly where my hands go at times
The sound is bad
I am holding onto Brooke’s bootie probably more than necessary but it’s a lot easier when you have as much leverage as possible. Sorry, Brooke.
PS: Sorry it is embedded twice. I don’t know how to change it without starting over, which I refuse to do. It’s the same video though, don’t watch it twice unless you are so enraptured you feel a strong desire to do so.

Backpack Awareness Day

Occupational therapy students Kim and Anna smiling sweetly with the board
Weighing a backpack/explaining

Y’all know the drill. Don’t carry heavy backpacks or you’ll break your back. The American Occupational Therapy Association, AOTA has National Backpack Awareness Day every September 19th.

Meg, AOTA rep, set up a board and fliers as well as a kitchen scale, and OT students took turns manning the area.

Our favorite guest of the day was our beloved Neal, who showed up in a gigantic crazy hat and the biggest “backpack” we’ve ever seen.

SO BE AWARE OF YOUR BACKPACK!

On that note, even though I haven’t done the soldering lab or Valpar, I’m stopping for the night.
Occupational therapy is officially being shut off in my brain for seven hours.

Quilting Lab

We had this no-sew quilting lab taught from Chattanooga via Distance Learning…so this is how we were taught. It can be pretty frustrating at times, but it’s also amazing. Brooke’s gorgeous square

Cheryl’s gorgeous square My not yet gorgeous square (it never did end up gorgeous)

Can I just say oops? I never even knew I could break a needle in half.
I ended up using my stapler instead. :X

Therapeutic Handling Lab

Good traction.
Or not.
Me man-handling Allison using NDT key control points, about to turn her over so she is sitting up.

We had a therapeutic handling lab. It had elements of NDT in it, and we also did some ribcage handling. It was pretty neat. I want to share theory with y’all, but for tonight I’m just quickly putting up picture teasers, seeing as how I have officially done nothing but school-related things for the last 17 hours, seriously. I haven’t stopped doing OT schoolwork since I got home around 6:30pm, and it’s 11pm now. But I couldn’t resist a few quick blogposts before I shower and go to bed!

Heart Walk 2007

UT Allied Health, including Occupational Therapy, REPRESENTED this past Saturday at the Heart Walk in Downtown Memphis. It was great!

The ultimate irony: Walking 3 miles for the Heart Association, then going to the Arcade for the redneck special, which has biscuits & sausage & gravy.

Wooie, too much stuff is going on

I remember a time this summer when I would have killed for good occupational therapy blogging material. Now I have so much I can't keep up!!

Sometimes it's hard to even figure out where to start with my workload , when things get this hectic!
Some of it's my own fault – the applications for TOTA/ASD are a time-killer and so is this blog, but at the same time those things are also very important to me, so I am willing to make sacrifices!

I think I'll start easy, just to get started – I'll do my two pages of journaling on Group session today as well as the Quilting Media Class, taught from across the state! Gotta work on VALPAR (group project), Biofeedback (different group project), my ASD/TOTA apps, blog entries (?), my Step 2 Treatment Case Project, Joshua Case Study (another group project), and Occupational Profile/Book Report tonight as well, plus eating, showering, burning a video DVD for a project for someone, and well, breathing.

Gotta keep on breathing. It's funny how one minute I'm overwhelmed and the next minute I'm okay with things!

Tomorrow we have neuro, then pathology, then a few random meetings, then a research meeting…then I'm going to work out because I haven't been doing a good job of it lately, and then continue to work my butt off.

I'm not the only one overwhelmed – all of us are the most stressed we have been! I am normally one to really balance my occupations and have a nice mix of fun/work every day of the week, but lately it's just work work work – I feel like I work all day, come home and work all night with brief/guilty breaks, and then go to sleep late, wake up exhausted, and repeat the cycle. I know it will improve soon, but MAN! It's hard!!

Okay. Now that I procrastinated by writing this up, I'm going to dive into work. Later on I'll take a break and do a few mini posts.

Don't cry for me Argentina/Occupational Therapy Students

Busy day!! Gone 8 to 6:30 and then been working pretty much since. Put up SEVEN albums on Facebook today too from all the occupational therapy student labs we've had lately! I'm quite the historian! If any of you want to be my friend on Facebook so you can see the ten bazillion pictures I take regularly of our labs, you can find me by typing my name (found in my e-mail address) into Facebook search.

Anyway, I write this quickly to inform you I don't think my brain can handle posting the promised labs tonight. I've stared at so many pictures and looked at so much text that I might explode if I do any more. And if I explode, I can never write the poignant vignettes of occupational therapy school again. I think you might begin to see my point now. My dull point.

So…tomorrow we have a media lab involving quilting (?), PLUS OMG HOW COULD I FORGET, IT IS BACKPACK AWARENESS DAY TOMORROW! IT IS LIKE THE BIGGEST DAY OF THE YEAR! OMG! So…pictures from that too I am sure. Okay so now I need to talk about AAC lab, Therapeutic Handling Lab, VALPAR (for Patti), and Backpack Awareness, and Sewing Media Lab. Phew, I'm behind already and it's only been a few days!

Occupational therapy school is still overwhelming but a TON of fun! The Therapeutic Handing Lab today was GREAT! I think I'm going to practice the sequence of getting someone from on their back to on their stomach, sitting, then side-sitting, then kneeling, then half-kneeling, then standing. And then make a mini video for educational purposes as well as eyeballey goodness.

Biometrics Lab – Biofeedback

That odd contraption clamped to the table is what takes on all the attachments.
Here is the program.

Here are just a few of the many pieces you can use with tihs program.
Here I am about to play a spaceship game with my cheeks.

On October 4th, I am doing a 2 hour presentation on Biofeedback with Meg and Emily. Our professor told us that he was driving a man in from Louisiana to give us a session on Biofeedback. This kind of freaked us out, since we worried our professor was maybe expecting a LOT from us if he would take the time and money to have someone spend hours with just the three of us.

Last Thursday, the man drove in (representing Biometrics), and he spent three hours showing Meg, Emily, and I a program that costs over 20,000 DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!! The program was amazing! You installed it on your computer via USB port, and then there was all this equipment that attached to the computer, a hub, and your BODY.

Basically, you could play 19 different games with virtually any body part. I played a space-ship game with my cheek muscles by controlling my smile. I did pretty badly since it was so hard!

You could use attachment pieces that included rods and disks, to work on range of motion with the various games. If you only had a few degrees of range, you could play the game within that range. You didn’t even necessarily have to play games though. There were goniometers and dynamometers and force plates that were attached to the hub that you could use to digitally record ROM or grip strength. One of the huge advantages of this program is that it can really weed out fakers in workman’s comp. When a person is actively trying to fake weakness, they can get away with it. But with some of these games or rapid-motion stuff, it would be almost impossible to mask your full strength!

You could also use EMG by attaching electrodes to the skin on top of muscles anywhere on the body, and then play the games just using muscle activation! It was so much fun!

This program was basically the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and I can’t wait to play with it some more. Our biofeedback presentation is going to be awesome because we basically get to show everyone how to play games for an hour of the presentation! That’s not to say it’s not valid – you can really work on strength and ROM, getting really precise measurements and also making it fun enough that the patient is distracted from their pain and willing to keep working!

————————–

Today in class we learned about Chiropractic care, Massage Therapy, the Caregiver Burden Scale Assessment, Therapeutic Handling including Ribcage Handling, and a few other random things. I also made a video with Stephanie on VALPAR administration in preparation for our presentation Monday. Tomorrow we have a lab in ribcage handling, I’ll be sure to get back to y’all soon with that. I’ve decided to save the AAC Lab post for tomorrow since I’m going cross-eyed at the computer and still have work left to do. I did get a LOT done this afternoon though, I’ve been very productive!

I also got e-mail today from a MOT student named Heather in Nashville, she said she was going to share this blog with her classmates. I encouraged her to start a class blog or individual blog. Shout-out to Nashville. 🙂