Future OT Megan

       I think that the closer we get to Level II fieldwork and the closer we get to becoming new OT practitioners, the impostor syndrome/impostor phenomenon ramps up. Imposter phenomenon is a topic we have covered several times throughout OT school, and now, I understand why. During the beginning of school, I didn't really feel like it was going to affect me but I see why we talked about it so much. You don't think you will get these feelings until you actually do. It is a scary feeling but it is also something that we know effects so many people. Impostor phenomenon is the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy or the feeling that others are going to start tp believe that you are not as intelligent or competent as they previously thought that you were.       In the podcast, "Impostor Phenomenon", Dr. Booker talked about having a balance of nervousness, or healthy anxiety, and confidence. Being right in the middle will decrease your chances of intern...

     A locus is where something occurs. A person can have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control. This means that if you have an internal locus of control, you base your successes and failures on your own work and that you control your own life. On the other hand, those with an external locus of control believe the outside world and those around you control your successes and failures. While most individuals have characteristics of having both an external and an internal locus of control, a lot of the times they lean to one side. There are pros and cons to each side.      As future practitioners, it is important to understand which way we lean and understand that our colleagues and clients may have a different locus of control than us. Some of our clients may blame us or others on their own successes and failures, or they might completely take responsibility for those themselves, even if that is not the case. I think as future occ...

This assignment has really brought to my attention how many everyday things OT’s can improvise with to give high quality care to their patients. I would have never thought about using a strawberry basket as a form of intervention for a client but after thinking specifically about my client, her occupations and what she wants to do, I was happy with how creative I could be.   Before this assignment, I have always been worried about my creativity. I would not describe myself as artistic but after this project, I have realized that being able to draw, or paint or make pottery isn’t all what makes you creative. What makes you creative is thinking about the circumstances you are in and adapting using the environment and the people around you. I thought I did just that with my media project. When I got a strawberry basket as my object, I thought to myself, “how will I ever come up with an idea to use this with my client?”. But after just sitting down, using past experiences and all that ...

     For this Neuronote I chose to watch the YouTube video, “My father’s behavior in the moderate stages of Alzheimer’s disease”. I decided to watch this video because I know several people that have family members with Alzheimer’s. After reading the caption under this video on Dr. Lancaster’s resources page, I was interested in watching. Alzheimer’s affects 2 new cases per 1,000 people aged 65-74 per year, 11 new cases per 1,000 people aged 75-84 per year and 37 new cases per 1,000 people aged 85 and older per year. Researchers do not know a cause for Alzheimer’s Disease but they believe it could be because of amyloid-beta plaques and Tau protein tangles. Alzheimer’s affects memory, thinking and reasoning, making judgements and decisions planning and performing familiar tasks, and can affect personality and behavior. There are current medications that can temporarily improve symptoms or slow the rate of decline. Early diagnosis is important so that the client can start m...

For this Neuro Note I decide to watch the YouTube video, “Sheryl and Myasthenia Gravis: How I Cope!”. I chose this topic because I have heard the name, but I did not know what exactly this diagnosis meant. According to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America, Myasthenia Gravis is an autoimmune neuromuscular disorder that is characterized by fluctuating weakness of the voluntary muscle groups. Sheryl in her video explains that this affects the eyes, mouth, arms, legs, fingers and neck. This can get worse and eventually affect your swallowing or breathing. In Myasthenia Gravis, antibodies block the receptors for acetylcholine at the nerve muscle connection keeping the muscle from working properly. In the US, 20 in 100,000 have MG and is very under-diagnosed . Currently, there is no cure but there are effective treatments to manage a life with MG. Sheryl is a 17-year-old living with Myasthenia Gravis and she was diagnosed at 16. Her symptoms started with weakness in the legs, arm...

For this NeuroNote I decided to look more into Multiple Sclerosis, or MS. I chose this for my topic because I hear people talk about this condition a lot and I know it is a common diagnosis seen in the OT community. I knew it was a disease that attacks your immune system but I wanted to dive deeper to further understand this condition. Before I watched the TedTalk, Thriving in the Face of Adversity | Stephanie Buxhoeveden, I did some more research into MS from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website. MS is a disease that attacks the central nervous system, specifically the myelin sheath around the nerves. This causes the formation of permanent lesions that cause communication problems between the brain and the body. Scientists are unsure of the cause of MS and the progress, severity and symptoms cannot be predicted because every case is so different. Most people are diagnosed with MS between 20 and 30, with women more likely to be diagnosed. Nearly one million people in the ...

For this NeuroNote I decided to learn more about ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It is also commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I knew a little about this disease from when the ALS ice bucket challenge circled the world in 2014, but I really wanted to learn more about it and how it affects not only the person with this diagnosis, but also their families. I decided to watch “Alex’s ALS Journey”. Before I watched the video, I wanted to look up some more facts about ALS and went to the ALS Association website to learn more. ALS is a progressive neurogenerative disease that affects the nerve cells of the Central Nervous System, the brain and spinal cord. Because motor neurons travel from the brain all the way to muscles in your body, ALS eventually causes the inability to control muscle movement. Many people with this diagnosis will lose the ability to talk, eat, move, walk and breathe. There are actually two types of ALS. The first is sporadic ALS which is the most common ...

For this Neuro note I decided to dive deeper into Guillain-Barré Syndrome. I chose this topic because I am not very familiar with it and really wanted to gain further knowledge into GBS. Before watching the Youtube video, Andrew's Story: Guillain-Barré Syndrome, I did further research into what exactly GBS is. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, GBS is an extremely rare neurological disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. GBS can range from mild, to very severe cases like Andrew's story. The good news is that most people, even with the most severe cases, will make a full recovery. Researchers do not know what exactly causes GBS and why the body's immune system starts to mistakenly attack its own body, but it is thought that it may start from the immune system trying to attack an infection. Andrew Franek had just started his new career as a firefighter when he got really sick with...

Social determinants of health are all of the things in your life that could affect your health. This is where health and wellness starts. Social determinants of heath are where we should start looking before we even look at the symptoms. Some social determinants of health include the clients housing conditions, socioeconomic status, transportation, food security/insecurity and employment status. These things all provide, or do not provide, resources that can help keep you well and healthy. Without some of these, people will have an increased risk of disease, lack of opportunity and less access to things that make them healthy. Social determinants of health can also affect the health of your nervous system. Stress is one thing that is affected by social determinants of health and it ultimately affects several areas of your nervous system. Stress can be a result of things like unemployment, food insecurity, poor housing/work conditions, and low socioeconomic status. All of these are...

As future OTs, we will be fitting our clients to assistive devices regularly. It is extremely important to fit these correctly to each patient. One reason why this is so important is that we need to give the client the right amount of stability needed. Another reason is that we need to make sure that it is comfortable for the client. They will most likely be using it every day, if not all day, so we need to make sure it correctly fits their body and needs. A cane is the most unstable of assistive devices, however, it might be perfect for one of our clients and their needs. In order to fit a cane correctly, we need to make sure that the hand grips are at the same level as the ulnar styloid process, the wrist crease and/or the greater trochanter of the femur. Their elbows need to be relaxed here and flexed to about 20-30°. It is important to make sure that the clients shoulders are relaxed down and not elevated towards their ears. To fit axillary crutches, you will use the same point...

The order for restoring confidence in mobility for increasing activity demands starts with the most basic which is bed mobility. As you follow up the mobility skills hierarchy, the next are mat transfer, wheelchair transfer, bed transfer, functional ambulation of activities of daily living, toilet and tub transfer, car transfer, functional ambulation for community mobility and the highest on the hierarchy is community mobility and driving. When I look at this hierarchy, the order makes sense. Especially starting with the most basic skill in preparation for transfers, bed mobility. Bed mobility is being able to move your body in bed to several positions including supine, prone, side-lying and sitting. Having the skill of bed mobility will allow the client to participate in activities of daily living and also allow the client to move to provide pressure relief. Bed mobility includes bridging, scooting and rolling. Doing this will help the client prepare for transfers, and reposition in b...

Back pain is one of the most common injuries in the country so it is extremely important to teach our clients proper body mechanics and posture to help prevent it. Most back pain is caused by poor posture and body mechanics! We also need to make sure to teach proper lifting mechanics and postures as that can help prevent back pain and disorders. It is important to educate our clients on these topics because it can help them maintain independence in their daily life, prevent injury and/or work injuries, and also help relieve some of the back pain they might already be experiencing. With my own clients, I would teach them proper lifting mechanics. I would demonstrate both a proper and incorrect lifting technique. A proper technique consists of bending your knees, widening your base of support on the ground, tighten your abdominal muscles and using your legs to lift the object. Another intervention I would do with my clients is to teach them how to correct their sitting posture. I would ...

In the advertisement for the Women's World Cup 2019, a little girl follows several professional soccer players while they play in the tournament. First, she is shown walking out onto the field with a player from the Netherlands. They walk onto the field from under the tunnel and the little girls sympathetic nervous system is fired on. She is nervous as her breathing is heightened, her palms start sweating, her heart rate starts to rise and her pupils are dilated as she steps onto the field. The sympathetic nervous system releases epinephrine, or adrenaline, to increase her heart rate and move more blood to her muscles to prepare her for "fight-or-flight", or the soccer game. She ends up playing soccer games with many professional athletes as her sympathetic nervous system continues to stay on. She is alert and aware of her surroundings in order to stay in the game. At the end of the advertisement, the little girls steps up for a penalty kick. Here, she takes a deep breath...

In the story, Man from the South, a man makes a bet with a soldier that the soldier's lighter could not light up 10 times in a row. If the lighter didn't light 10 times consecutively, then the man would chop off the soldiers pinky finger. If it does, the man will give him his car. The soldier agrees because he says he does not remember the last time he actually used his litter finger. However, even though you may think you don't use it often, you do. As a soldier one of the main things you do is shooting a gun. Without your little finger it would be difficult to hold the gun steady and also fire the gun. After the lighter has lit up 8 times in a row and the soldiers hand is tied on the table and the man is holding the knife right above the soldiers little finger, the man's wife walks in. She explains that he has nothing to bet because the car is hers. She reaches her hand out to get the key to the car back and she only has 2 fingers. She tells everyone that she had to ...

Implicit bias is something that everyone, not only OT students and practitioners, need to be aware of. Implicit bias in short is someones subconscious stereotypes. Sometimes, you don't even know you have them but being aware of them can help us to fix them or get rid of them. They can be about anything from people, religion, politics or disabilities. Although everyone should be educated on implicit bias, it is extremely important for OT students and practitioners to be educated about it. Occupational therapists believe in occupational justice, or the idea that everyone should have equal opportunity to engage in meaningful occupations that play a part in their personal idenity. OTs also must have cultural-humility, or understanding that occupations are very different for people in different cultural contexts. We need to have cultural-humility and strive to keep learning about other cultures in order to be more client-centered. OT practitioners need to make sure that they are making ...

Scapulohumeral rhythm is extremely important to shoulder range of motion but what is it? The scapulohumeral rhythm is the ratio of the movement between the scapula and the humerus. In normal range of motion of 180° of shoulder elevation, the glenohumeral joint will move 2° for every 1° moved at the scapulothoracic joint. So, it is extremely important that the humerus and scapula are moving in synchrony. If the scapula becomes fixed in retraction and does not upwardly rotate, then the arm cannot flex correctly. This can cause contralateral trunk flexion as a compensatory movement to try to get the arm up higher. Making sure the humerus and scapula are moving and working together can help prevent injury to the glenohumeral joint, bursae and ligaments surrounding the shoulder. Proper scapulohumeral movement requires the scapula to protract and upwardly rotate. Clinically, therapists must pay close attention to this rhythm when assessing the shoulder girdle. Therapist should move the humer...

When testing range of motion, it is extremely important to use bony landmarks to know where you should place your goniometer. This makes your measurements reliable and also repeatable for when you test range of motion again or if another therapist checks the range of motion of the same client. You also need to make sure to position your client correctly. This ensures that the client is able to perform full range of motion of the joint being tested without any other part of the body coming in the way. When looking at MMT, the "test position" is important so that the client is in the position for optimal muscle contraction. Most levers in the human body are at a mechanical disadvantage. So, moving the limb into this "test position", which is usually at the middle of the movement, will ensure that is where the lever is at its optimal strength. Using the gravity eliminated position is very important for clients low strength. You always try MMT in an against gravity pos...

One thing I do every morning is drink a cup of coffee.  My start position is sitting on the couch holding the cup coffee in my right hand with my elbow flexed at 90 degrees in an isometric contraction.  At this point, my bicep muscle is the agonist and my triceps muscle is the antagonist. I then use my bicep to complete a concentric contraction to flex my elbow further and bring the coffee cup to my mouth.  My bicep would be the agonist muscle, my tricep would be the antagonist and a synergist muscle would be my brachialis muscle. Durning this action of elbow flexion, I am moving in the sagittal plane about the frontal axis. The osteokinematics of this movement would be voluntary flexion of the elbow. Using the concave on convex rule, the arthokinematics of this movement of elbow flexion would be the ulna rolling and sliding in the same anterior direction. To finish my movement, I use an eccentric contraction of my bicep to lower the cup of coffee back to 90 degrees. Here...