Group items tagged

The purpose of this study was to explore occupational therapy faculty and students' perspectives of the meaning of professionalism. This qualitative study used convenience sampling to recruit eight second-year occupational therapy master's students and five occupational therapy faculty members to participate in two separate focus groups. Data analysis yielded the following student focus group themes: uncertainty about professional expectations; searching for answers through concrete concepts; and the context-specific nature of professionalism. Faculty focus group themes were professional responsibility; professional awareness. The findings of this study suggest that professionalism is a dynamic, context-specific concept requiring experience, awareness, and reasoning to arrive at an in depth understanding.

The scope of this handout created by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is a guide for school based therapist when determining if a child is in need of services in the school. This document states that if the child cannot have access to their education or will not experience educational benefit then occupational therapy services are relevant and could be necessary in order to enhance the child's educational success. Alternatively, this handout also addresses when occupational therapy services are not warranted. Some indicators to know when services are not needed include 1) the needs can be addressed by a special educator or school faculty 2) can needs be addressed during non school hours and/or 3) will providing services lead to an unnecessary gaps or contraindications with other necessary services. These simple guidelines can help the therapist to clinically reason if the student requires services and why or why not. Another great piece of this handout is discussing when occupational therapy services can be discontinued. This section helps the therapist walk through the necessary step in order to accurately determine if services are still needed.

I was very excited to talk talk about this article. During my rotation, I have found that my FE uses kinesiotape fairly often with patients, depending on condition and circumstance, obviously. I know in our MOT class/faculty, we definitely had some "doubters" in the effects kinesiotape can have. One of my patients was a lady in her 70's who had a CVA more than 10 years ago, and has since suffered from significant shoulder subluxation. She came in to therapy after trialing botox. When she came to us, she was very discouraged that botox had not helped, and also discouraged because past OT had not helped her at all, and was now dealing with significant pain from subluxation. After research and discovering this article, I discussed with my FE and we agreed that this California Tri-Pull taping method would be appropriate to try with our patient. In short- the patient found that the tape really helped her, and felt like it was the first thing that had provided her a little bit of relief in a long time. -The taping method itself actually is not too complicated, and did not take long to practice and learn before completing on a patient. In short- this article discusses the methodology for taping, as well as research that backs the effectiveness of the taping method. Overall, the study finds some mixed results in effectiveness in terms of reducing subluxation and reducing pain, but overall can be a promising adjunct to the management of the hemiplegic subluxed shoulder

This article examines the longitudinal effects that a specific OT and PT program within a specific university affect ethical decision-making in their students. The study examined two classes of students and administered the Defining Issues Test (DIT) which according to the article is suppose to be a fairly valid measure. The test was administered on the first day of class and then in the final semester of the students coursework. The results found that the formation of ethics can be a difficult process. The study states that age is a huge factor in this process. Students over 30 years old appear to have formed and be set in their own ethical decision making process. Also, the study found that with at least this program, the students were not provided with enough coursework and instruction in ethical decision-making. The authors suggest that programs provide three to twelve weeks of instruction on ethics as opposed to the typical intermittent instruction throughout coursework. Overall, I found this to be interesting to consider. Overall, I feel that the program is set-up really well. However, I must admit that I would be curious if we had a course that was specifically aimed at ethics. Perhaps this will occur when the program moves to a doctorate degree.