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

In my rotation I have had an opportunity to work with multiple different stroke patients, and I have seen how aphasia has affected their lives, and this article documents how these individuals are at an increased risk for depression. The goal of this study was to determine whether an early intervention for an individual who has aphasia post stroke, as well as that persons family, leads to better mood and quality of life outcomes for people with aphasia, and less caregiver burden and better mental health for their family members. What was unique to me was that this study/intervention was the first known program tailored for people with aphasia and their family members -Unfortunately, this study is not finished, and is still in progress. However, to me this is also very unique that it was published to let you know that there is a new program being tested, and I think since it is supposedly the first of its kind, it could truly have great psychosocial benefits for individuals with aphasia post stroke.

http://ot.unm.edu/common/docs/fieldwork/articles/Benefits%20and%20Challenges%20of%20supervising%20FW%20II%20students.pdf

I thought this article was really interesting as it comes from the perspective of the supervisor about the student fieldwork experience. During my first rotation, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the speech therapists in my facility who had just finished working with her student. To put it briefly, she noted that it was a big wave of emotions; it was exhausting from an educating stand point for her, but not having her student with her the next day was a big wave of reality for getting back into her routine.
-The study from the article that I posted the aim was to investigate fieldwork supervisors' perspectives regarding the benefits and challenges of providing
fieldwork placements, explore the potential link between providing student placements and later workforce recruitment, and document currently employed models of fieldwork supervision. Results from 132 survey questionnaires Top answers for questions about benefits of the experience included: potential recruitment, student projects produce resources, contributes to their own development, students teach new evidence based practices, and it eases the load of their own workload.
As far as challenges were concerned, the top answer/ greatest challenge was lack of resources (desk space and computers). Workload pressures/lack of time, concern for student capability, and costing staff downtime were rated as moderately to very challenging by a majority of respondents. Learning style clashes and potential difficulties with clients/consumers were rated by a majority of respondents as only slightly or moderately challenging

This study aimed to test the construct validity of an instrument to measure professional behaviors in entry-level occupational therapy students. To do this, the researchers developed and validated an instrument that evaluates entry-level OT student professional behaviors. 718 students from 37 OT programs answered a self-assessment survey of professional behavior. The questionnaire in the survey consisted of two sections. The 1st section had questions about attributes related to professional behaviors and the second section had six items on demographic information of the respondents. From the survey, the researchers found that the most frequent student professional behavior issues were: lack of personal responsibility, social intolerance, disrespect of others, tardiness, missed appointments, excessive absences, failure to meet deadlines, and dress code violations. Another purpose of this study was to show that the instrument developed by the researchers could be indeed be validated and indeed provide valuable information that could be helpful for students as well as clinical supervisors and OT programs,

This study aimed to identify the factors influencing ethical behavior of pediatric occupational therapists at work. The researchers conducted a study of 12 currently practicing pediatric occupational therapists. Researchers interviewed these therapists with questions regarding factors affecting ethical beliefs and ethical behaviors. From the interviews, 4 main themes were revealed: 1. organizational factors (some participants believed lack of human resources or therapy space impacted ethical behaviors), 2. therapist related factors (some therapists believed that things such as self esteem, competence, family/home life all impacted ethical behaviors), 3. client family issues (some therapists thought that a child's family/parents could impact a therapists ethical behaviors. For example, a parent may instruct a therapist NOT to stop a child for crying, versus other parents instructing the therapist to punish the child for crying), and 4. Social factors (some participants believed that social factors, such as an overall societal decline in ethical behaviors, such as not having financial support systems or insurances not covering occupational therapy and thus causing for mistakes. In another perspective, participants pointed out that in the past if a patient could not pay for services the therapist would still help them, but now therapy can only be provided if they can pay for it or have enough insurance.

The aim of this study was to determine if occupational therapy level 2 students clinical reasoning skills would be impacted at all based upon the level of feedback given from their fieldwork supervisor. Data was collected via focus groups with students, and looked at the type of feedback students received about their clinical reasoning, and how they experienced their feedback. The study compared type of feedback with final exam grades, end of term grades, and academic performance to draw conclusions. Specifically, feedback can be either confirmation and/or corrective, and corrective feedback could be with or without suggestions on how to improve. Overall, the study found that clinical reasoning skills seem to improve through corrective feedback if accompanied by suggestions on how to improve, and the students who did better on their exams received corrective feedback about their clinical reasoning skills. Thus, confirmative feedback alone may not be the best for improving students' clinical reasoning skills.