Why Did You Choose To Be An OT?

Becoming an occupational therapist will not only change your life; it will make a positive impact on others’ lives too. According to the Bureau of Labor & Statistics, OT is one of the fastest growing careers, and it is almost recession-proof.

I want to be an occupational therapist because I love how the body works. I think that it is so cool that we don't need to be plugged up, turned on/off..we just simply run off of electricity and the pumping of our heart. The way that the mind and body are intertwined and help influence are day-day activities and occupations is so wonderful. I always told my mother that I would make a difference in the world and I plan to change some child's life and help them. I love helping people, my heart is as big as the world and if I can make someone's life that much more simpler by helping them write their name or tie their shoes; I will love going to work everyday!



Priya's story below inspired me to want to work with children with special needs. 

Also check out this article: "Seven Great Reason to Consider a Career in Occupational Therapy"
I will post 4 of the reason and if you would like to read more click the link!

1) Career in Demand: As a subset of the healthcare industry, it is set to take off in the next several years. As Baby Boomers inch their way towards their AARP years, the whole healthcare industry will be in demand.

2) No More Monotony: As an Occupational Therapist, you will likely never endure monotony on the job again. Since the clients you will work with may have several different problems, which you may choose to treat several different ways, and since each individual client is different, your days can be as variable or monotonous as you wish!

3) Dynamic Career: If you choose to specialize in pediatrics, it is not difficult to make a slight career change and work as a hand specialist or geriatrics. This ability to form your career to your personal whims is a great advantage of a career in OT, and you will not need to obtain an additional degree to change specialties. (However, extra training may be preferable in some cases.)

4) Make a Difference: At the end of the day, everyone wants to know that what they are doing is impacting someone in a possitive way. It's a human desire to help people and impact others. When your client smiles after achieving a goal, the delight in their eyes will stay with you and help you sleep well at night. That is very different from the draining work of cubicle jobs!

Keeping Fit and Having Fun

When I finish OT school, I plan to specialize in children and children with special needs. One of the biggest issues I see on a day-day basis is the exponentially increasing problem of childhood obesity.
These days, childhood obesity are one of the biggest health concerns in the country. Adults are concerned but did you ever think that kids might recognize it as a problem as well? OT's work in the school system as well as the home, so obesity, exercising and eating healthy are things that are illustrated through these specialists.

Kids Health conducted a KidsPoll and asked 1,168 boys and girls about the issue. More than half of them said too many kids are overweight. This is important because knowing there is a problem is the first step to getting answers to solve this obesity problem. 

What does "overweight" mean? Well people who are overweight have too much body fat. The person who is overweight weighs more than is healthy, considering many factors such as: age, height, and sex. The number of kids are are overweight has increased tremendously over the last 30 years and this can lead to serious health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.

Overweight kids may get teased or bullied by other kids which is sad because these children typically don't make friends or do well in school.

It's great that kids are thinking about weight problems and the best way to solve them. It's like putting together a difficult puzzle. Understanding that there's a problem is one piece. Understanding what causes kids to be overweight is another. And knowing that eating healthy and exercising are the best strategies to fix the problem is a very important piece.

Getting kids to exercise more in school should be more serious than it is. Kids exercise all the time without even thinking of it. Like when you run around outside or play kickball during gym, you are exercising and staying active. You can also do extracurricular activities such as dance, sports, or even stretching.




Here are some exercises and activities to build strong muscles:

• push-ups
• pull-ups
• tug-of-war
• rowing
• running
• inline skating
• bike riding

The most important thing I take from exercising is that exercising makes you feel GOOD! 

It feels good to have a strong, flexible body that can do all the activities you enjoy — like running, jumping, and playing with your friends. It's also fun to be good at something, like scoring a basket, hitting a home run, or perfecting a dive.

Therapy Fun Zone

How many of you have actually played balloon volleyball over at a friend's birthday party or played Dominos with your family at gatherings? I bet you didn't know that these fun, daily activities that you use for leisure are also exercised as therapy techniques when treating clients who suffer from apraxia. Apraxia or motor planning is the difficulty of getting your body to do what it needs to do in order to complete a task.

Praxis is when you think "I want to put my socks on", but then your brain tells your muscles what steps they need to take in order to accomplish the task.

When suffering from apraxia, you have trouble figuring out what you need your muscles to do in order to accomplish this task. The term can be used related to tasks, so you may hear someone talk about different kinds: speech apraxia, dressing apraxia, oral apraxia. 

Thanks to the creators of this totally cool website Therapy Fun Zone, many different motor planning activities are shared with us and I am going to share two of them with you.

1. Balloon Volleyball is such a simple game to play that is fun for young and old. It can be played standing up or sitting down, although when sitting down, someone will need to retrieve the balloon when it is out reach. I don’t think I need to say this, but will, just in case. The balloon needs to be blown up by lung power, no helium, or the balloon will fly away.

• The objective of the game is to keep the balloon in the air for as long as possible. You have to reach up to hit the balloon, but it is easier than using a regular ball since it is so light and floats down. You can substitute a beach ball, which is a bit heavier so it will be a little harder because it won’t stay in the air as long. 

• Reaching up to hit the balloon works on arm strength and upper extremity range of motion as well as working on the movements for trunk and shoulder stability. When playing the game while standing, you can work on standing balance and weight shifting as well as lower extremity strength.

Skills:

• Upper extremity strength
• Lower extremity strength if standing
• Balance
• Trunk control
• Shoulder stability
• Core strength
• Motor planning

2.  Dominos: When playing dominos in therapy, we don’t usually play the game of dominos . Instead we line them up to knock them over. Lining the dominos up on end requires fine motor precision in getting them to stay in place. It also takes eye hand coordination and visual perceptual skills to get the dominos lined up properly. Then the fun part is knocking them over and seeing them fall down in a row. You can make it simple or detailed by how you line them up.

Skills:

• Fine motor
• Visual perceptual
• Crossing midline
• Upper extremity strength
• Fine motor precision
• Reach and grasp

How Do You Hold Your Spoon?

Grasp Patterns  

The use of a spoon for eating is one of the first tool-using skills that many infants acquire. Why does it matter how kids hold their spoon or even more relevant, their pencil? If you were to look in any classroom you will see a wide variety of ways that children hold their pencils, write, etc. There are what OT specialists call an "ideal functional pattern" for grasping pencils/ojbects but there are also many grasp patterns that are NOT functional and that can get in the way of a student's writing ability. In the newsletter Grasp Patterns the use of our hands for different tasks is described in depth and cool therapeutic ways to promote functional groups.

We use the two sides of our hands for different tasks.
Muscles of the thumb side are primarily controlled by the median nerve and are used for skilled manipulation. The little finger side is primarily controlled by the ulnar nerve, and is uded for strength.
How you pick up things isn't really something we think about because it is pretty much an involuntary motion. We are always told that there are proper ways to type, correct posture, correct way to brush your teeth, etc but do you remember when you were taught how to write?
How many times did your parents take the spoon or pencil out of your hand and make you hold it the correct way?

Now take a second and think about how you would pick up and use an ice pick versus how you would pick up and use a needle and thread. 

If you are anything like me you would pick up an ice pick by using your thumb, index and middle fingers for primary control and use my ring finger and little finger to control and stabilize the needle and thread. 

Some of the cool interesting ways to promote functional grasps are listed below:

• Pop bubble wrap with thumb and index finger 
• Draw in the sand with a stick
• Use eye droppers to drip water mixed with food coloring or paint 
• Use chalk to draw big on sidewalk
• Lite Brite, Connect Four, Etch a Sketch, Perfection
• Legos, K'NEX
• Sticker books

Here are the two different groups of grasps.

Personally, I hold my pencil like the quadrupod and it luckily is a functional group.

What kind of grasp do you have and do you think it effects your writing ability?

Occupational Therapy in a Nutshell

Occupational Therapists: What Do They Really Do?

 

The role of an Occupational Therapist (OT) is always questioned when mentioned in conversation.There are many different types of OT: child, adult, home health, outpatient, etc. They work hand in hand with physical therapists, speech therapists, psychologists and often counselors. People always seem to ask: "Is it like Physical therapy?" "Does it only deal with a person's occupation?" etc.

Well, as I was researching the role of an OT, it was hard to find one simplified definition that would cover all aspects of occupational therapy. As I continued my search, I ran across a blog page that was discussing OT month, the month of April, and their topic was "How Kids Explain Occupational Therapy". A very unique post about the encounters of an OT specialist who generally works in a home health setting, strengthening children's abilities. She shared some conversations with children and parents and their views and responses to what they thought OT was. It is evident that many people actually have NO clue what OT specialists do and that during child interventions, a parents perception usually reflects on their children's. An example from her post was:

I figured I would just ask the simple question: “Do you know what occupational therapy is?” The children tried their best to answer this difficult question:

Child 1: “When you write letters?” (This poor guy was searching so hard for the correct answer.)

Child 2: “When you work on your visual skills.” (We mostly focus on visual-perception with this child, so bonus points for him.)

Child 3: “When you play in the gym.” (There goes that whole gym teacher stereotype again.)

Child 4: “When you make me do writing.” (This kind of makes me sound super mean.)

Child 5: “It’s a place you go to learn things.” (When I asked him what kinds of things, he was pretty certain that he could learn everything in OT. What a cool kid.)

Child 6: “Where you do fun things!” (Yes! I think this is the new Pediatric OT motto! Hey, it’s certainly better than “OT: Where we make you do writing.”)

 Majority of people get confused because so much of what OT professionals do is based in a person's "occupations," or their meaningful daily tasks. When you work with children, their main occupations include play. Many times it looks like they are just playing around, but every therapeutic technique/assessment has a purpose. Even then, there is still an unanswered question as to what they really do. 

Will people's perception of what OT do always be different? Everyone has different psychosocial aspects that affect the context of how they perceive things. A simple definition, in my own words, is that OT use a holistic approach when targeting the needs of individuals when developing, recovering or maintaining their daily lives and work skills; whether it be physical, mental or a developmental condition. 

What do you think the role of an OT is?