New Years Greetings

Posted on January 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

I am having a new year tidy up before life gets busy again. I am not going to say I have a new years resolution to post more as that is most often the best way to ensure it doesn’t happen! So I am going to apply some occupational therapy wisdom (not sure occupational therapy can own it, but we do use it a lot with clients) ‘”start with small steps and you will be surprised at the opportunities and possibilities that unfold”.

Todays small step is to tell you that we are about to do some work upgrading the website everydaymadeeasier.blogspot.com  Please go and look at it and give us your thoughts on what is useful and what could be developed further, or things that you think should be there that aren’t etc. There is a feedback tab on the site.

Happy New Year, may 2013 through your actions be one to remember positively.

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Posted in Community, Education, elearning, Marketing, Occupational therapy, Problem solving, Support, Sustainability, Total hip replacement, Uncategorized

Everyday made easier

Posted on September 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Hannah and Rachel third year students at Otago Polytechnic have just completed a 3rd year project. If you have read my posting titled ‘Total hip replacements and occupational therapy’ you will know that I was surprised by how little information was on the internet that had an occupational therapy perspective. The website they have created was designed to help address some of these issues.  Website is called: Everydaymadeeasier

designed for people who want to carry on taking part in their daily activities while waiting for surgery, recovering from surgery, living with physical injury, or living with a long-term physical condition.

http://everydaymadeeasier.blogspot.com

so go and check it out, and if you think others would benefit from the information send the link on. They are keen to gain feedback on what you liked about the website site and what you would like to see developed or improved.

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Posted in Uncategorized

It’s been a long time between posts!

Posted on August 16, 2012 | 1 comment

I’m a bit surprised to see how long it has been since I last posted. Life must have been busy!

As the regular visitors to this blog will know I work at Otago Polytechnic. In the last two weeks I have been lucky enough to have been at our third year student conference called Kiwi-IngenuOT. Where the students all present using blogs, posters, podcasts, video’s and aural presentations. The conference saw an amazing range of topics combined with great use of the mediums to get their message across.

Then today I got to hear our second year students presenting about the fieldwork placements they have just returned from. It reinforced the incredible range of things occupational therapists do and therefore the range of placements on offer for students. It was great to see their grasp on the value of meaningful occupation in people’s lives.

Whilst we are on the topic of student work, watch this space, I have been the sponsor of a third year project and am looking forward to being able to link you into the work they have been doing.

Hopefully the next posting will utilize one of the half written posts sitting in the drafts section of this blog 🙂

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Posted in Education, elearning, Occupational therapy

Total hip replacements and Occupational Therapy

Posted on September 30, 2010 | 11 comments

I have a vested interest in this post. I am about to have a total hip replacement. I decided that it was time to get up to date with the latest does and don’ts and to see what online advice is out there. I was interested to see how well occupational therapy was using the internet to advise those needing surgery. What have I found?

Interesting there is little change in the advice since I trained 30 years ago.

What did I find and what did I expect to find:

  1. I expected to see a more occupation focus to the occupational therapy information. Most information talks only about ADL’s and related equipment. In living with a hip that needs to be replaced there seems to me to be a lot more that could be talked about. It was even difficult to find concepts such as energy conservation and work simplification.  
  2. I expected that there would be presurgery advice. I don’t mean information given out a week or two before surgery and associated with preparing for surgery and the weeks after, but rather advice to assist from the time the possibility of surgery is identified.  Advice that includes priniciples of joint protection on both the affected and unaffected side and that helped you keep in the best shape physically before surgery and helps you keep engaged and participating as things get harder to do (as of yet I haven’t found any info that would cover this).
  3. I found that there is an assumption in the information that if you are having surgery you are in the older age group and  not it seemed doing a lot! e.g. only needing to dress, shower, eat prepared meals for one, sit a lot (in the same chair) and occassionally drive a car!. Yet I know that  there are many very busy active 60 plus’s, and then there are the people like me I meet who are working, paying mortgages, engaging in a wide range of activities, some with young families,  all heading towards a hip replacement.
  4. That occupational therapists would have got together with consumers and worked up some really good information that all occupational therapists could use, after all there is no sense everyone reinventing the wheel. 
  5. That the advice would be consistant. There seems to be differences in some advice and no rational given for why the advice may differ e.g  whether you should sleep on the operated side or the nonoperated side, the precautions associated with internal and external rotation, and moving the operated hip backwards.
  6. Occupational therapy advice seems hooked on equipment, rather than techniques  e.g. what happens after the first week or so when the person get more active e.g what do you do if away from home and needing to go to the toilet and there are no high seats?

Therefore…

If you are heading towards a total hip operation what do you need to know in relation to the tasks and activities you want and need to do? Perhaps then occupational therapists will take up the challenge to design information that helps you.

and occupational therapists what are the best examples of information from occupational therapists already online? and why? and what evidence is there that should we be calling on in the information we put online?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

11 Comments

Posted in Education, Occupational therapy, Total hip replacement, Uncategorized

Employment of occupational therapists in New Zealand

Posted on August 27, 2010 | 4 comments

This year in New Zealand it has been significantly more difficult for new graduate ocupational therapists to find work. This appears to have been for a number of reasons:

  1. The first most obvious – the world wide recession, times are tighter workplaces worldwide  are more cautious. We have noticed a significant reduction in occupational therapists heading off for their big OE (for those non New Zealanders OE = Overseas Experience) with occupational therapy work being difficult to obtain in places such as the UK .
  2. District Health Boards in New Zealand are feeling the pinch
  3. Changes in ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) have meant that many occupational therapy agencies/companies have lost contracts or had reduced work . Those staff affected have appeared to move back into district health board employment, changing the usual balance in these workplaces of internal promotion versus external appointments and thus not freeing up the positions traditionally taken by new graduates.

This has meant that there are still a number of new graduates seeking work but not yet in work. On a positive note there does seem in recent weeks to have been an increase in new grads being offered work. It is interesting to note that on seek.nz (internet job search web site) there are currently 30-40 occupational therapy jobs advertised thoughout NZ. All of these are not new graduate positions, however one would hope that the stepping up of others into these positions will free new graduate positions.

What to do meanwhile – my advice (for what it is worth!)

  • Keep your focus don’t give up
  • prepare prepare prepare – do your homework for each position you wish to apply for. Find out as much as you can about the job, the organisation and the people in it. Use the internet, people you know, ring and ask questions about the post (work out carefully what you wish to ask before you call ) and then use the information you gain in your application letter and to help you prepare for the interview
  • Write your letter specifically for the job you are applying for (don’t use a generic one).
  • Make sure your CV is up to date. Put on your CV any part time work you are doing at the moment and any volunteer work you might be doing
  • Consider volunteering – volunteer work can be a useful stepping stone into work, it can mean that you are gaining skills by working in an area related one you wish to gain emplyment in.
  • Make sure you gain feedback from previous interviews. What did they see as your strengths, ask them about how you presented at the interview, how well you answered the questions, did your knowledge and understanding come though, was there an are you were weak in.
  • Build up your networks, be seen in occupational therapy circles
  • Practice interviews, have someone give feedback on your CV, letters etc
  • Keep your referees up to date witht he jobs you are being interviewed for – as their reaction when telephoned for a reference check can help
  • Stay cool, some of getting work is being in the right place at the right time

If you are a new grad from Otago Polytechnic and still looking for work and wanting suport or help please call.

Jackie

4 Comments

Posted in Marketing, Occupational therapy, Support

Occupational therapy is just commonsense isn’t it?

Posted on October 17, 2009 | 9 comments

NO NO No!!!

I don’t know how many times I have heard an occupational therapist or an occupational therapy student say “its just commonsense” when someone comments on something that has been suggested or recommended by the occupational therapist. After all doesn’t everyone know how to set goals, how to use a problem solving process or know that being well occupied contributes to self worth and self identity?

No !! If it was that easy everyone would just do it. Yes some but not all people do know about theses things but many struggle with how to bring them about . In the case of goal setting knowing how to not only set an achievable goal but to break it down to achievable steps to, work out how to remain focused on the goal, to learn how to plan for and scale any barriers that may be in the way and to celebrate the successes especially when one is coping with change, injury, disbility, illness or changed circumstance is difficult.

It’s definitely not just commonsense rather skilled artistry on the behalf of the therapist in getting alongside the person and making the difficult seem achievable.  Just as being well occupied, engaging in a range of satisfying occupations can require careful consideration of the environment, the person and the occupation/task or activity  by the therapist in order to bring it about successfully enabling the  person to experience meaningful engagement and the feelings of wellbeing that go with it.

The good bit (and sometimes the hard bit) is if we are good at what we do many don’t notice the intervention it just worked -they did it and slowly the skill of goal setting, problem solving, and the ability to bring about being well occupied moves from being facilitated by the occupational therapist  to being within the clients arsonal of skill to use as and when needed and so it begins to becomes the every day, and as that happens the illusion of commonsense develops.

I am not saying others can’t bring these things about however an occupational therapists ability to manipulate context rather than the person is a pretty unique skill.

The dictionary says commonsense is: “good sense and sound judgement in practical matters” so perhaps occupational therapy is commonsense – but perhaps commonsense isn’t all that common? Perhaps occupational therapists amongst other things are builders of commonsense?

Here ends my first rant and first blog for ages…

So visitors to this blog – Is occupational therapy just commonsense?

9 Comments

Posted in Occupational therapy, Problem solving, Uncategorized

Where does time go?

Posted on April 7, 2009 | 5 comments

I can’t beleive that it is almost Easter and I haven’t done any posting nor checking on the occupational therapy blogging community for sometime. I have just checked my statistics which make me feel pleased but somewhat sad as despite my absence people have been visiting my site.

Life seems busy. I think I am going to have to check out the literature on occupational balance. Easter resolution is to find time for blogging.

5 Comments

Posted in Occupational therapy

Calling occupational therapists – What’s OT?

Posted on November 29, 2008 | 8 comments

OT , BT3.

ALO, KOT,POT,FI, FW1,CH,ALT,ROP,HOT,SAOT

How would you feel if I told you you would be doing all of these next week? Would you feel anxious?, wonder what you should wear?, whether you should eat before you did them?

Well I guess there is about 100 people in the world who will understand all that I have just written, and at least 260,000 who will understand the first OT. From memory that is, the number of occupational therapists in the world, according to the World Federation of Occupational Therapists recent stock take on occupational therapy.  Given that we ponder/discuss and constantly work on how to get our profession better recognised by others why do we persist in saying and writing OT?

I remember as a student, another student telling the story of an elderly client who had wanted something and had been told to talk to the OT. She was heard asking around the ward for the Old Tea Lady (true!!!!)

Today I got a call from my extended family, as per my last post I currently have a family member in hospital and he has now moved to rehabilitation, and fantastically they have put a list on the wall of his rehabilitation team. Today the question from the family was what does SW stand for, what about SLT and PT and is OT occupational therapy ? I know that one day they will know what all of these stand for but wouldn’t it be nice if they knew from the word go. For those that don’t know SW is social worker, SLT is speech language therapist, PT is physiotherapist and yes OT is occupational therapy.

We have a beautiful name, that describes our core beleif why don’t we use it? I know we have to explain occupation to others but we are half way there if people start with knowing the name of our profession. So lets stop the jargon and abbreviations as one of the most proactive steps we can take to having people know and understand our profession.

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Posted in Marketing, Occupational therapy, Reflection, Uncategorized

Occupational therapy and client/ patient handouts

Posted on November 26, 2008 | 3 comments

I have had some recent experience of knowing someone in hospital. From this experience I have some thoughts about handouts.

Many professions use handouts as a way of informing patients and their relatives about an issue, strategies or techniques that would be useful for the client and their family to know. The concept is a very good one. We know that clients and their families don’t always know what to ask or what will assist in the persons treatment, a handout can help answer questions and give them things to do. It gives them something to refer back to, gives them the time they  need time to absorb the information at their own rate and means that they can use the information to help them form questions.

So from my experience here are some things we should consider when giving out a handout (and I reiterate I do think handouts are very useful, if well thought out and I acknowledge that we don’t have time for them to all be individually done).

1. Handouts are often generic, so find a way to personalise it for that client. Put their name on it – and find a way of indicating which of the pieces of information/suggestions or techniques are best suited for that client. For example you could state at the beginning of the handout that the ideas suited for Tom or Sally have a tick beside them and the ones that aren’t relevant a cross (make the ticks big and bright).

2. Find a way of keeping the information together for the client – a bundle of loose pages gets lost, people don’t know if they are still relevant or even for that person, they don’t know if the information is out of date or still relevant. Perhaps they could be placed in a file (with a date on them) or perhaps they could be dated and put on the wall.

3. Indicate on the handout how you think the information should be used e.g. is it something that you are suggesting family/visitors do with the client (negotiate with the client that this is ok with them first though and have this on the handout) or do you expect the client to do it themselves?.

4. Make sure the handouts are up-to-date with the clients progress

5. When you do give a handout – don’t just hand it quickly over and walk away (after  all it is important) – explain and go though it with the client and/or family

5. Finally, all of the above is even more important if the client has a memory problem !!!!! (sounds obvious!)

So if you are a therapist how about thinking about your handouts. Could you improve them, and how you introduce them to your clients and their families.

I will look forward to seeing if any of you have other suggestions of the does and don’ts to add to this list.

3 Comments

Posted in Education, Occupational therapy, Reflection

Occupational Therapy and Literature

Posted on November 12, 2008 | 1 comment

Middle Beach St Clair

Middle Beach St Clair

Today I went to a lunch time seminar the speaker was Rosemary who had been a lecturer at our school of occupational therapy until her retirement last year. She is now finding time to do a PHD.  It was a really interesting talk on using popular literature to gain an understanding of Occupational Therapy – an understanding of occupation and an understanding of the human condition.

Two things I have taken from or thought about since the talk:

Occupational therapists recognise in all occupations the technical skill e.g. in baking a cake (the techniques such as creaming butter and sugar together, measuring ingredients, using the stove etc). But  when you read a popular literature story (or even a children’s story)  that involves baking a cake the reader realises as occupational therapists do when working with clients  that there is much more to baking a cake than the technical skills. Why is baking a cake important to that person?, why do you decide to bake a cake?, what do they gain from baking it?, how does doing it impact or affect who we are? As we work with our clients/patients as occupational therapists we believe that all of these things are implicit to why people choose to  engage in certain occupations.

So the occupation of baking a cake and most occupations are complex they are not just about the technical skill but also tell us about the human condition.  As we work with our clients/patients as occupational therapists we know that many things contribute to why people choose to  engage in certain occupations.

The other piece of food for thought as an educator is that occupational therapy students and occupational therapists need to know as much as they can about occupations and the human condition. How do we get this knowledge when we only have our own experiences. Rosemary suggests that ‘good’ popular literature is a way to come to a greater understanding.

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Posted in Education, Occupational therapy, Professional development