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I am sharing this article as a reminder of how important bone health is. This article shares information about how much calcium adults and children need and the importance of calcium and other vitamins and minerals for healthy bones. Eating healthy and exercise is essential in promoting healthy bones. We as COTA's will be treating clients of all ages and I feel it is necessary for us to understnd and educate when we can on bone health. Understanding a lifestyle of eating healthy and knowing what damages our bones is important. Education and being proactive on bone health may prevent us and our clients from distress in our future.

Print out our checklist to use with your patients to help them develop individual stress management strategies. Click here to print now! Stress is a commonly under-recognized, untreated dimension of recovery, rehabilitation and medical intervention. While all patients seeking medical care experience stress, for individuals with disabilities the dynamics are not the same.

The checklist Richard mentioned is a great resource! Thanks Richard. I plan on using this in the future. :)

Great article about how to help our patients with chronic conditions manage stress that impacts their daily activities.  Personal stories of stress management coping skills and how to help our clients identify their personal triggers. This article has some great questions for patients to ask themselves when identifying their personal stress management techniques.

Our diets are important in our lifestyle. This article shows (a slide show) the foods that can aggravate arthritis.

Would you prioritize sleep if you knew it kept your immune system strong? That's the question the American Academy of Sleep Medicine wants you to ponder this week. Lost in the hoopla surrounding Independence day was the publication of some eye-opening (or eye-shutting) research by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine showing that the immune system responds sharply to sleep loss.

This article emphasizes the correlation between stress and sleep. No matter our age, everyone needs plenty of sleep to properly function. Sleep is a time for our bodies to "reboot". Just like stress, lack of sleep is harmful to one's overall well being. The article lists similar physiological effects that are caused from lack of sleep that our text book has listed for chronic stress. High stress levels and an inefficient amount of sleep wreak havoc on a persons immune system. It is always easier said than done, but we all could improve our health by finding ways to reduce stress and sleep more.

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'm sure most of us animal lovers in the program have seen this picture and heard the story, it is a couple of years old. But in my research with aquatic therapy for our papers it made me think about it and I wanted to post it on here for those who haven't seen/read about it. It is about a man who helps his very arthritic dog by taking him into Lake Superior when the water is at a warm temp.

Oh this was too sweet! We all have our lows and this was a simple way of showing someone that there are simple reasons all around us to keep pressing on and continuing in our daily occupations. Love being one of them. :)

We could all use a little help with our documentation right? Found this link on pinterest with some great resources to help with our wording in our documentation. We want to sound professional and educated so we get billed right? This really helped me out some!

Awesome resource, thanks for posting. Documentation is something I have to pick up speed with and being able to use the right wording helps cut down my thesaurus time lol.

This helps, this is an area I am struggling with this semester!

Here is a list of ways that you can educate your patient on how to conserve energy throughout the day.

This is a great handout to keep in our tool box. The majority of patient's these days need to be able to conserve energy while they heal. In our fast paced society it is hard for people to slow down. EC techniques are useful for our clients and ourselves at times.

you can find workshops in our area on the TOTA page. 

Body mechanics is a term used to describe the ways we move as we go about our daily lives. It includes how we hold our bodies when we sit, stand, lift, carry, bend, and sleep.

As we all are getting older and our parts are showing wear and tear, there is hope!

our role with sexuality

Written from an OT perspective. Includes an interview process and Sexuality Assessments.

commonly used to determine the level of participation a professional should have with clients, remember P-li-ss-it

Are you in the Living Zone or in the Unfortunately, many of us have found ourselves living in the Tolerance Zone - tolerating our limited strength and mobility. We've given up fighting the battle and have come to accept our current limitations as inevitable.

I learned about this cool, FREE app, at the TNOTA conference during our students presentation. You basically download it and it allows you to choose a vision impairment (from the list provided) and you can then experience how the client w/that particular vision impairment sees. You can scan your surroundings using your camera feature. It even allows you to control the severity of the symptoms. This tool is not only great for educating yourself, but can be an extremely beneficial tool when educating family members on what their loved one is experiencing on a daily basis.

you can also download using itunes for ipad or i phone as well. (i just happen to have an android)

We spend a lot of time sitting at our desks every day, and while it may not look like it, it can wreak havoc with our bodies. Here's how to set up a healthy, ergonomic workspace to keep you comfortable and injury-free.

This article describes our current education system of one that is inclusive to students of all abilities while at the same time struggling to find money to support students who need assistive technology to learn. There are a few technologies that can be used in the classroom that are a little cost or even free. Included are 8 tools that can be used by students with disabilities that can be used in the classroom or in online classes. A link was supplied that will help you find out exactly what is needed for the individual student and a group that helps provide technologies to students. Overall, a great resource.

As we age, our needs and interests evolve and change, so our choices of housing should be wide ranging, as should be the spectrum of activities and services. Most older adults wish to remain in their homes and communities as they age.

I chose this article because when I was at Keystone, an adult day program in Oak Ridge, I saw the benefit of this program in allowing seniors with physical and cognitive deficits to remain at home, or in assisted living, for longer periods of time. I liked this article's emphasis on integration of many programs to age in place successfully.

I choose this article because it is about gerontology (study of aging) which describes two theories of aging: one is natural aging that programmed in our body and the other one says that aging is a result of damage which accumulated over time. In this article we also can find information on how to take care of our body as we age, how to prevent age-related diseases and ilnesses.

This may be old news to some individuals but these are some pretty cool feature for individuals with certain, as Jennifer Isham would say, diffabilities. As OTA it is our job to keep our client connected and active in the activities they love. What better way to accomplish this than by teaching them these neat feature on their telephone which make the phones accessible. Communication through the telephone is necessary and with the majority of phones being smart phones they also needs to be implemented as an assistive device to help individuals throughout the day. Not only are the accessibility features very useful but other features on the smart phone can serve as a useful tool for some cognitive deficits such as short term memory loss. For example, the phone can remind them of appointments or to take medications. The Android system, whether you own an LG G3, Galaxy S4 or Nexus 5, has a number of accessibility options built in for those hard of hearing, suffering from a vision impairment or any other number of other conditions that might make the standard operation of your Android difficult.

In the war against aging, Alzheimer's disease is one of our biggest foes. But while we seem to be losing the battle, we may finally have found some chinks in its armor. The most common form of dementia already affects an estimated 5.2 million Americans and 45 million others worldwide, and these numbers are projected to triple by the year 2050 as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement.

Even though Alzheimer's disease fell into our psycho-social class, it still is a huge component of the ageing process for many people, and a condition that we will most likely be dealing with.