Group items tagged

I found this really great website that described what visitability is, who it is for, and some statistics that show how badly homes need to meet the visitability requirement. The page I specifically bookmarked is what really stood out to me, it is an interview with Eleanor Smith, the Founder of "Concrete Change" and the U.S. visitability movement. Please take time to read her story of growing up with a disability and how difficult it was for her when her friends and families houses were not accessible to her, and what she decided to do about it.

This article has some insights about gay/bi/trans people and aging that many of us may not have thought about. Two that particularly stood out for me were the likelihood that LGBT elders may not have family to care for them and the invisibility of older LGBT people. In working with LGBT older clients, we should be aware of and open to the different experiences they may be having (and certainly will have gone through in their lives). This article was originally written on The Huffington Post by Robert Espinoza, the Seniored------ Director of Public Policy and Communications of Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE).

This is the amputee coalition website. What an amazing resource for patients, families, and therapist. This website provides current research, peer support, and even has detailed discussion about how to deal with phantom pain. Great website and resource!

Thanks for sharing this Kellie

This would be a great article to share with a patient that has cancer or with their family member. It describes the OT's role in caring for someone with cancer and the many places where OT can be provided.

This articles gives the importance of early intervention with children with disabilities, and also talks about the children that need intervention and cannot recieve it. If you dont have a topic for advocacy letter this may be good idea.

I'm taking the idea, I like it! Thanks Ginger!

Here is a room-by-room checklist of steps you can take if someone in your family is impacted by a lasting injury, disability or age-related physical challenges. Many of these improvements will also make your home safer and more comfortable for able-bodied residents and guests alike, as well as potentially increase its value.

This article provides a checklist for making a home accessible. It begins with simple solutions for ensuring safety and also recommends contacting someone that has a Certified Aging in Place Specialization (CAPS) that can help design the home to meet visibility and universal design. I think it will be important for us to be skilled in assessing a clients home to help enable them to age in place.

information on how to treat burn patients

This website provides a lot of information about the types of treatment that are provided on an outpatient basis and from what I see is very OT related. It includes info on scar control and massage, pressure garments and how to put them on, therapeutic exercises including using the PNF technique, work hardening, common interventions, modalities, ADLs , and the different splints used and why they are used.

It covers the do's and don'ts of burn rehab as well as how to administer different exercises, garments, and scar massages.

This video helps to understand what happens in the marrow and cells of someone going through a stem cell transplant. My dad went through this over the summer and he was healthy enough and his cancer cells were low enough that they could use his own stem cells for the transplant. It is amazing that the immune system can drop to undetectable during this process and a person not develop infection, but that was the case for my dad. He was only hospitalized and given 1 bag of plasma and 1 blood transfusion during his recovery and never had any infection. New treatments for cancer are being found all the time, but this disease seems to affect the majority of families.

ideas for what our patients may need modified to adapt to thier enviroments.

This is a fairly cheap looking page but I like how it groups the different types of adaptive equipment by what ADL they are used in conjunction with.

An emotional look at life with COPD. Jan Karlbon explains how COPD affects her and her family.

Oncology is described as an emerging practice area in the world of OT, and currently not many OT/As are working with people with cancer and their families. There are certainly efforts to change this, but for right now many people - both within and outside the profession - are very unfamiliar with how occupational therapy can help cancer patients.

This is a company that provides sexual surrogacy (the topic that Tyler brought up in our class) and resources for those with disabilities to explore and fulfill their sexual needs. This is obviously not a light topic of discussion and some may take offense with what this company offers, but it is a conversation that is worth discussing. Individuals with disabilities may have a harder time understanding and exploring their sexuality. Society has a tendency to desexualize those with disabilities because it is not a topic that most people are comfortable discussing and families/caregivers might even infantilize those that they care for because of their level of dependence.

This AOTA article includes the definition of arthritis as well as OT's role in the treatment of arthritis. There is also a great tip sheet for treatment of arthritis by current need which can be downloaded for ease of use.

This is a printable tip sheet for people with arthritis. It has columns for what you want to do, tips for doing it, and how an OT can help.

Useful tips for how to help someone with arthritis, whether it is a family member or a patient.

Fantastic website that provides adaptive equipment for individuals with arthritis, products for caretakers, aids for daily living, and mobility aids. Great resource for our future clients, and their family members.

This is a great poster on how a client and their family can make their home more wheelchair accessible. Having a sheet like this would be a great way to discuss with clients how well their home is wheelchair accessible and the changes they could make.

I like this poster on how to prevent falls with the elderly. I feel like this would be great for not only the patient but family to understand ways to prevent falls.

Having recently learned more about end-of-life care and the psychosocial elements that come into play when treating people with fatal illnesses, this site offers advice that could help family and caregivers to communicate in a way that is sensitive to the situation of the client.

This is a documentary that follows 3 teenage girls with autism as they get ready for prom, and learn how to transition into adulthood. Education and early intervention is important with ASD, but as OTAs we also need to remember that these individuals will be dealing with their autistic symptoms for most of their life. This documentary gives us a glimpse into their lives, relationships, families, and therapy sessions as they learn the social rules and cues of the adult world. I wish I had HBO so I could watch this. I encourage all of you to watch it if you can. It looks like a beautiful documentary that shows the basic desire we all have to be loved and accepted.