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I know someone has posted about palliative care, but I wasn't sure of the difference between palliative and hospice. So, I began to research it and it made sense to me as to why it is better to get palliative care. It also said that it helps to increase the survival rate by 3 months. Also, here is another link to shows you the difference of each. http://www.stcam.com/hospice/palliative-vs-hospice/

I feel all health care providers should read this article not just OT's. This article talks about how patients may be feeling after being diagnosed with cancer and how we should help them through this. They may not be able to do a lot of the things they were doing but these things are still important to them. It is our job to help them believe that there is still hope. As a health care provider and a daughter of someone that had been diagnosed with cancer, I totally agree with this article. Just because they are diagnosed doesn't mean they have to loose hope.

This is an on-line copy of the textbook Occupational Therapy for Physical Dysfunction, 6th Edition. The first edition of this textbook with authors Catherine Trombly and Anna Deane Scott, was the first textbook aimed at OT for physical disabilities. Pages 22-29 address the origins of Occupational Therapy a lot of which is being discussed in the Work Lesson. Afterwards, it discusses practice tools as being work programs, crafts and exercise, adaptive equipment, PAMs, and orthotics. It helped me to view these in this manner as a choice of possible patient treatments to feel more secure in entering field work in the near future. It also states that physical therapists establish individual motions before the OT works on movement combinations required for ADLs. The simplistic wording of this book helps me to have a greater understanding of the OT profession as a whole which is why I chose to share this site.

This source lists many ways occupational therapy practitioners can help cancer patients maintains or regain meaningful activities.

A nice compact list of ways to protect your joints. The list comes with examples and extra information that is helpful to the practitioner and the client. This is relevant to those with joint pain and those who want to prevent joint pain.

The nature of care-giving can place great physical stress on you as the caregiver. Practicing proper body mechanics will decrease the stress and strain and help to safely manage the mobility of the care-receiver. The primary rule is to maintain the normal lumbar curve at all times.

Thanks for sharing, I used this website in my Pearltrees about PD, it has very helpful info.

I found this article when I was making my marketing webpage for practice management. A lot of children who are effected with long term illness or disease fall behind in their development. Occupational therapy helps them catch up and reach important developmental milestones so that they may be more successful in play and learning. This pamphlet is for parents of children at St. Jude explaining what OT is and how it can help their children.

Occupational Therapy play a very important role with patients dealing with a cancer diagnosis. OT can help with energy conservation issues, pain, weakness, psychosocial, and physical impairments. Quality of life and independence are key. OT can be of service to people newly diagnosed, in cancer treatment, or in hospice. What I needed reminding of was that OT can help those that have survived, especially the psychosocial aspect.

This article discusses the specific areas and goals that occupational therapists may address with cancer patients. I thought the writer did a great job explaining what occupational therapy is and why the field is so important. This would be a good resource for later on if I ever go on to interview for a job in oncology, would be a nice review of how impactful OT can be.

Botox was approved for medical usage in 2010. We are starting to see it being added to the patient's tool belt. Therapy is still very important when a client is suffering from the affects of spasticity. Botox can help the therapists help the patient's. Botox relaxes the muscle and tissues it is injected into thus allowing not only some relief of the pain of spasticity but the ability of the patient to move better.

This occupational therapist has worked with breast cancer survivors for over 20 years. She talks about how OT helps make tasks "easier, safer, and possible". She helps them deal with the pain, weakness and fatigue associated with cancer. I love how she describes occupational therapy!

A lot of us are thinking ahead to level two and trying to get organized. I have found this article with some helpful hints and several links for "surviving level two fieldwork" Hope this helps.

This photo I found on pinterest helps describe the function of our brain when we are stressed. Also, below it promotes exercising while stressed because it can trigger a good stress response and produce good antibodies and norepinephrine. By using providing this to a patient with high levels of stress this can give them an idea of tx that can reduce.

Sex is a taboo subject for some people, but as future OTA's we need learn how to be able to answer questions about sex. If as a therapist we are uncomfortable discussing sex, we aren't establishing a very good therapeutic use of self if we can not effectively communicate with the client their concerns regarding sex.

This is an article on AOTA website that talks about how important addressing sexuality in the OT field is and the interventions we might take to address sexuality with our clients. Always helpful to have these facts and examples on hand for our future.

Sexuality is a core characteristic and formative factor for human beings. It is a state of mind, representing our feelings about ourselves, what it's like to be male or female, how we relate to people of our own gender and those of the opposite gender, how we establish relationships, and how we express ourselves. This article from AOTA was helpful for me when we were going over sexuality in class. It mentions some specific areas OT can address.

I thought this was very encouraging. This is why I am proud to be on my way to becoming an OTA. These students came up with some amazing ideas. I'm sure some of our assistive devices this semester will be benefcial for many patients.It is our job to make sure that patients can get as close to their previous life as possible, and these students have done some great things.

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.

This really helped me prepare for Splinting lab, and gave concise tips for the process. Carrie said a lot of the same things, but I like how this is put together.

This article provides a quick fact list about helpful tips when forming a splint. This will be a handy resource if working in an orthopedic setting.

There are quite a few programs designed to help children return to school after a burn injury, but it sounds like this was the first.

Interesting article, Lorie. I taught at a high school several years ago that had a pretty strict "no hats worn in the building" policy. There was one kid that I kept seeing that had a toboggan. Turns out he had had severe head burns, and the school permitted him to wear it. Good for them.

I'm sure some of us remember hearing the story on Zion Harvey this summer. This brave little boy underwent a bilateral hand transplant after losing both of his hands, and feet when we was younger. I remember hearing on the news that "he would have several hours of therapy a day" after the successful surgery. I found it encouraging that this article addressed that he had occupational therapy everyday. As future OTs/OTAs we know that occupational therapy will help him work towards his goal of playing on the monkey bars, and help him with his other ADLs. I hope we all have patients this positive in the future :)

This is an old, short 1916 film with no sound showing soldiers, who are amputees, wheelchair racing, playing tug-of-war, marching, and dancing. This is conjecture -- but maybe there are reconstruction aides helping them out -- the people who helped in the development of occupational therapy. Also, this film shows the amputees as NOT helpless, having fun and very much functional.

In our combined lab with PTA students, one of my scenarios involved tennis elbow. This video explains some helpful exercises for this condition and would be good to share with patients. It also explains that tennis elbow is now seen as being degenerative rather than inflammatory and as tendinopathy instead of tendinitis.

This video is very informative - I have learned something new. Thanks for posting it!

Very helpful Beth!