SSU MOT 6691 & 6692

Community reintegration and activity constraints significantly improved for people with chronic stroke after an 8-wk intervention combining yoga and group occupational therapy (OT) for fall risk management. Occupational therapists may wish to add yoga and group OT to community or hospital settings to improve similar outcomes.

This article examined the impact of Merging Yoga and Occupational Therapy intervention on balance, balance confidence, and fall risk factor management for people with stroke. All outcome measures improved with significant changes in balance, balance confidence, and two risk factor management assessments.

This article explains how even after one is discharged from therapy, how life is the best therapy and you can continue to still build strength. I saw a lot of this with finger amputations in my placement

This article explains the difference in the attitude an OT holds to their patients and how it affects the therapeutic relationship

This presentation describes potential positive impacts on quality of life that social participation and meaningful activity groups can have on residents during their transition to assisted living. Occupational therapists possess distinct expertise in facilitating engagement in these areas.

Age, leisure activity participation, and depressive symptoms are all significant predictors of instrumental activity of daily living function. Occupational therapists can incorporate evidence-based interventions to address both depressive symptoms and leisure activity participation.

Advances in health care science allow more people with spinal cord injuries to live to old age. The purpose of this study was to determine those factors that contribute to the well-being of middle-aged and elderly spinal cord-injured people. One hundred spinal cord-injured people, ranging in age from 40 to 73 years, completed an extensive structured interview. In general, respondents reported a degree of well-being on the same measures of satisfaction and depression that was slightly lower than that of similarly aged nondisabled people. Pearson correlations indicated that people experiencing high levels of well-being reported high levels of perceived control, had higher levels of social support, and judged their health status to be good. These people also viewed their disability more favorably, tended to have higher incomes and more education, were employed, and were more religious than those indicating lower levels of well-being. The severity of the spinal cord injury was not correlated highly with subjective well-being, although there was a tendency for those with greater disability to report lower levels of well-being. People who were younger, who incurred their disability at a younger age, and who blamed themselves and felt they could have avoided the injury also tended to report higher levels of well-being.

This article explains why finding a mentor is so important as a new graduate which we will soon be. :)

This explains more information about using NMES on an individual who has suffered from a stroke

This article discusses evidence regarding the effectiveness of treatment for people with Parkinson's disease. The researchers focused on a multidisciplinary approach within the inpatient rehabilitation environment. The study included 68 subjects with a diagnosis of Parkinson's. Throughout their length of stay, subjects participated in a combination of OT, PT, and ST for a minimum of 3 hours per day, 5-7 days per week. Intervention focused primarily on functional training, stretching, ROM, flexibility, and strengthening exercises. Following their intense rehabilitation, significant improvements in FIM total, cognitive, and motor scores were demonstrated in 71% of the subjects.

Evidence Connection articles provide a clinical application of systematic reviews developed in conjunction with the American Occupational Therapy Association's (AOTA's) Evidence-Based Practice project. The clinical condition discussed in this inaugural Evidence Connection article is adults with stroke. Findings from the systematic reviews on this topic were published in the January/February 2015 issue of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and in AOTA's Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Adults With Stroke (Wolf & Nilsen, 2015). Each article in this series will summarize the evidence from the published reviews on a given topic and presents an application of the evidence to a related clinical case. Evidence Connection articles illustrate how the research evidence from the reviews can be used to inform and guide clinical decision making.