My new Norwegian friend

This random stick thing is some character in Norwegian children films. I think it’s super cute and adorable, don’t ask me why. And don’t ask me HOW exactly, but I see him showing up in OT sessions in the future somehow. Hmmm. 

Ziplock Big Bags for OT storage

I carry sooo many tiny items to work on fine motor, and have tons of self-made “kits” ie fine motor kits, sensorimotor kits, visual motor kits…and I think having these bags will be awesome to put together visible kits that don’t take up a lot of room. I think they have L, XL, and XXL. I haven’t tried them yet, but I go home Tuesday and plan to start organizing toys ASAP. I just saw these at Publix and bought them to try them out! 

Segway device puts wheelchairs to shame

http://gizmodo.com/5894489/segway+style-device-for-paraplegics-puts-wheelchairs-to-shame

This looks cool 🙂

"Famous" OT blog ;)

I copied this out of an e-mail (all the old ones I am going through finally). Someone was telling another person they should meet me at conference: “If you are going to the AOTA meeting, you might enjoy meeting my friend from California, Karen Dobyns. She is the famous blogger about OT (just google occupational therapy student blog). I don’t know how to describe people well but Karen looks like an OT basically. She has that same caring-giving OT look all OTs have and her pictures are on her web site although she doesnt usually wear the Miss OTPF tiara.”

"Anita" – woman with Down syndrome – movie – OT relevant?

I want to share the information about this film because it is the acting work of an amazing young person with down syndrome. Also, it is a very riveting story told by a good filmmaker. Ala and I saw it and loved it!

“Anita”
This heart-warming film tells the story of a young woman with Downs syndrome (Alejandra Manzo) who lives a happy, routine life in Buenos Aires where she is meticulously cared for by her mother Dora (Academy Award-nominee Norma Aleandro). One tragic morning in 1994, everything changes when Anita is left alone, confused, and helpless after the nearby Argentine Israelite Mutual Association is bombed. As Anita wanders the city, she learns not only to care for herself but touches the lives of those around her.

Anxiety over graduate school/rotations…You can do it :) If I can do it, anybody can…

I’ve had quite a few people now e-mail me to let me know their favorite posts are the more personal ones dealing with anxiety, etc. Let me tell y’all, I’m a walking DSM-IV-TR of issues. 🙂 Always functional for work though, hello bosses and insurance companies (:::waves::…seriously though. I LOVED LOVED LOVED OT school, but the parts I loved most were with my butt in a chair – I love learning and I can memorize things and take tests really well. I was valedictorian with Virginia (who I am seeing Saturday!) as we both had 4.0 GPAs. After an undergrad dealing with neuroscience, OT school was super easy compared to my undergrad…the hardest parts were time management and dealing with being in like fifty small groups at once. 🙂 Every time we had labs or rotations or anything hands-on, I got anxious. I hate to look stupid or not know what I am doing, and I get nervous and uncoordinated and forget everything I know, so even though most everyone else liked labs and real-world stuff most, that just wasn’t my personality. I had three, three month Level II fieldwork rotations. My graduate school makes us do 9 months rather than the more typical 6 months because it requires us to have a mental health rotation, which is relatively unusual. ALL THREE of my fieldworks fell through, so my plans changed last minute. So I ended up starting with an outpatient pediatric setting (in Mississippi) and that was a pretty good starting rotation for me as it was in pediatrics which I felt strong in, and the kids we were seeing were semi high-functioning, ie we weren’t seeing kids that were super complicated from a physical standpoint. My second rotation was in a hospital and IT NEARLY KILLED ME. Thank goodness it was a smaller hospital and we didn’t get the super complicated stuff. I loved my supervisor and we are still friends, but, not kidding, I was taking quite a lot of anti-anxiety medications just to get through each day, even with semi-un-complicated patients, because the hospital setting was so stressful to me. Nobody really knew as I am pretty good at hiding it and I did very well apparently, but to me, I was a mess. I felt so awkward and stupid trying to maneuver people in and out of bed. The easiest, most foundational skills of an OT, were the hardest for me. They still are. I was so relieved to be done with that rotation even though I liked the people. It wasn’t that it wasn’t interesting, I just felt soo incompetent, even if I apparently seemed competent to the rest of the world, haha. That’s a common feeling, to feel like a fraud or imposter, when first learning a healthcare trade, by the way. My third rotation was my mental health one (so my first was a specialty – I chose pediatrics, my second was physical dysfunction which was mandatory, and third was mental health, also mandatory for my school). Anyways, I spent 3 months in a locked psychiatric ward, specifically a geriatric one, so a lot of aggressive dementia. That was another one where I was sooo nervous each day entering the locked ward. We had to take a course that was basically self-defense, but with the defense being only to get yourself out of a tight spot, not to hurt the person. IE, if a person with dementia grabbed onto your wrists as you walked past, how could you get out of that without hurting anyone. Once I was on the ward I was usually ok, and had a hard time leaving it in the afternoon, but each day I was nervous. And each night I went home and slept for hours (I was staying with friends as this one was out of town). IE, get home at say, 5, sleep till like 8…get up for an hour or two, then go back to bed. It wasn’t the rotation’s fault, but my own psychological issues. Nobody knew that at work because I paid for it on my own time, so to speak. I was determined to get through the rotations. I’m not saying this to scare anybody, because again, the rotations were fine – it was me and my problems with depression and anxiety, etc, that made it a challenge. But I *still* got through all three of them with flying colors and was praised to the skies, so I wish I could have relaxed and enjoyed them more, as clearly I was doing okay…And am still in touch and friends with all the supervisors I had, and they all offered me jobs or would have if they were available. 🙂

Sexuality, personal care attendants, OT??

I totally recommend checking out this PDF (link below) if sexuality in OT is something that interests you at all. Well, you know. Not practicing sexuality. But how OT can play a role in it, or at the very least, needs to be aware that sexuality is potentially an important component to a person. Often times, whether or not the client mentions it is directly related to how “open” they think the OT will be in regards to discussing it. Some brave OTs flat out ask about it. I remember that when I was a student, I was giving a hand-out on sex positions to a man having a hip surgery (how to have sex with hip precautions), and he pointed to one of the positions and said to his wife “Remember this one?” AHAHAHAHAHA

 I skimmed this PDF and I was impressed with some of the things it covers, that you don’t typically see in print. A lot of it had to do with personal care attendants and whether or not they were comfortable with helping with sexuality, ranging from masturbation to positioning the person for sex, clean-up before and after, etc. Very intriguing. This PDF isn’t specifically meant for OTs, but I think has a lot of relevant points that OTs should be aware of.

This document (see link) came out in 2011 on attendant services and sexuality and I thought you would find it useful …(edited for brevity) But this document covers a real issue and is based on research in Sudbury and Toronto.

http://www.crncc.ca/knowledge/related_reports/pdf/Sexuality%20and%20Access%20Survey%20Summary.pdf

Challenging worksheets …

Worksheets like this can be challenging for young children with fine motor and/or visual motor issues. In this particular case, the child has difficulty staying in lines but also being able to copy words from a box in one corner to the various lines. Often, because it is so hard for them, they end up giving up and doing an even poorer job…I chide my little guy (in a KIND, silly voice)….Did a troll do this? Because it looks like a troll did this. Was it you or a troll?  He knows to say it was a troll if it's extra messy. So then we erase the writing of the troll (a little at a time) and replace it with HIS nicest writing, not a troll's. 🙂 Yay! No more troll writing!! This is amazing!! So much better!! Silly troll trying to take over your worksheets!!! 

Weighted Pencil DIY

I loved this tip about weighted pencils off of TherapyFunZone.Com’s comments…

Some new OT blogs…

I like these tips at this blog: http://www.golden-reflections.com/p/occupational-therapy-tips.html