Assistive Technology Seminar Day!

Fruit, Tea, Water (later chex mix was added to the table)

Cookies, Brownie Brittle, Cupcakes, Donuts, M&Ms,
Soapilla Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Cereal Bars, and Coffee

Today, July 17th, was AT Seminar Day! It was a long day, but it was a great day! I had tons of fun! So, the event lasted from 9am-4pm. Several students from the program brought snacks for the vendors and attendees to munch on! For lunch, we were provided sandwiches from McAlister's Deli. We were broken into 6 groups with 19 students each. There were roughly 16 vendors give or take. Some were set up in the lobby of the building and others were in different classrooms or conference rooms throughout the building. In the lobby, there were also small contests that we could compete in to win a gift card prize (who could put a sock on with the sock aid the fastest, who could write their name most legibly with a writing aid, who could type a selected sentence with a typing stick the fastest, who could button two buttons of a button-up shirt with a button hook the fastest, who could adjust the leg rests to the proper height quickest and on first try, and who could adjust the breaks the fastest). I won the sock aid contest! My prize was a sonic gift card. Also, during the seminar, I learned how to pop a wheelie (though not very good) and how to recover from a wheelchair fall (i.e., how to pull yourself back upright after tipping backward in a wheelchair). Other than that, there isn't much else to say about the day. I have included tons of pics below. Enjoy! Keep in mind not every item at the seminar is pictured below. I also took a couple of videos, but since I recorded them on my phone the quality is crap. One of the cooler products that I don't have pictured is the Tobii Dynavox I-15. This product is a communication device that uses eye gaze. I got to test it out and it was really awesome. The only thing is that after a period of time it seemed to miscalibrate what I was looking at. It was unfortunate because the vendor was going to record me using the device but then it started acting up -- bummer.

Nosey Cup, T-handle Mug & High Sided Plates

Weighted Fork, Knob Turner, Angled Spoons,
Cuff with Spoon, Weighted Spoon, Built Up Spoon, Rocker Knife

Sugru (can be purchased on amazon.com)

Foam and Gel Cushion Samples

W/C adapted BraunAbility Toyota Sienna  

Adapted Chevrolet Silverado 

Bemo sitting in the chair of the adapted
Chevrolet Silverado

Crutches & Walking Sticks

Bemo in the IWalk

"Safer" Automatic Wheelchair Wheel Locks
by United Plastic Molders
saferwheelchairs.com

Whirlwind Wheelchairs

Nurmi Neo Posterior Pediatric Gait Trainer
by Ottobock
ottobockus.com

Leckey Squiggles Pediatric Stander
by Ottobock
ottobockus.com

Kimba Neo Pediatric W/C
by Ottobock
ottobockus.com

K450 MX Pediatric Power Wheelchair by Permobil
permobilus.com

F5 Corpus by Permobil
permobilus.com

Buddy Roamer Posterior Walker

Rock and Roll Cycle
rockandrollcycles.com (website down as of 07/17/15)

AM-16 AmTryke by Ambucs
ambucs.org

JT-2000 AmTryke by Ambucs
ambucs.org

Multichair Tub Slider System
by Nuprodx

Switches (demonstration in video below)

Environmental Control Units

Environmental Control Remotes

Ergonomic Computer Access 

Keyfinder Keytime Left Hand Keyboard
 Standard one-handed Qwerty keyboard
Keyfinder Dvorak Right Handed

Maltron One-handed keyboard

Thanks for stopping by!

<3 Bemo

Mental Health FW 1 Experience: Recounts & Thoughts

Hey guys, so as of Tuesday, July 14th,  I wrapped up my MH FW 1. To give you some background the FW took place at an psychiatric facility for short-term crisis stabilization. I was in a group with 2 other classmates. The FW was a total of 7 weeks with group once a week. The first week, we got to observe the current therapists at the facility conduct a group. I was kind of disappointed because the group we were able to observe was just a physical education group. They played "HORSE" -- not much to see. I was really looking forward to observe a psychoeducational group, but that didn't happen.

Every other week we were required to write a SOAP note on one of the group members. The most common diagnoses that we saw were bipolar, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder with corresponding substance abuse. In order for the clients to participate in group they had to at least be yellow status. Red status clients were only allowed to participate in group if it was held in the outdoors part of the unit. We hosted 2 physical education groups, 2 media/craft groups, and 1 psychoeducational group. One week of our group got cancelled due to a newly admitted patient unknowingly having chicken pox.

Postive Affirmation Shoe Box

Waterballon Obstacle Course

Plastic Container Staining 

Ceramic Box Painting 

Foosketball

Piñatas 

We did a water balloon obstacle course, positive affirmations shoe boxes, ceramic box painting and plastic container staining, foosketball and knockout, and piñata making and hitting. Our best group was probably the water balloon obstacle course. The group members seemed to really enjoy it. Our least successful group was probably the piñata making and hitting. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad group, but it was a little chaotic. For one, there were wayyyy to many group members for this particular session (16 group members). The room that craft activities and most groups take place is super tiny, with not a lot of room to navigate. Also, the members didn't have enough time to finish their piñatas, which I already anticipated. I had expressed my concerns to my group members prior to the session but they thought it would be fine so I was like okay. Also, the bootlegged piñata we made for them to hit was burst on the first hit. So 1/16 group members got to hit the piñata lol HOW FUN! The group with the worst turn out in terms of attendees was the foosketball and knockout games. There were only 4 people for foosketball and about 6 people for knockout. The staff decided to join in since participation was so low. Fortunately, those who decided to participate seemed to really enjoy it. I joined in during knockout and actually won the second game -- yay Bemo! ha Also, our large dice was complete crap lol -- it didn't roll effectively and it tore apart in less than 6 rolls. It was kind of embarrassing.

In my opinion, our sessions were not the most creative. I'm horrible with coming up with activities that I think others will enjoy, so I didn't contribute to coming up with the main ideas. My biggest role was making sure that whatever my group members suggested were realistic and could be completed within the 30-45 minutes or would actually last the 30-45 minutes we usually had to hold groups. Some of their ideas were pretty cool, but not realistic to last for an entire session. Some of the other groups that hosted sessions were MUCH more creative! Unfortunately, I don't have access to their pictures so I can't share.

My evaluation on how I did is Thursday, July 16th. I think I will be rated pretty average. I don't anticipate that I will be rated as exceeded expectations in really any category. I felt like I did a good job interacting and connecting with the members and my documentation was pretty good, but I don't feel like I did anything spectacular. I also didn't really ask any questions. One of my group members consistently asked the supervisor about their diagnoses after group. I'm not particular fond of labeling people so I never felt like I just NEEDED to know their diagnoses, especially not for the purpose we were there. Now, if I was actually establishing real goals for the members to meet, then yes knowing their diagnosis would be more important. I guess I just didn't feel like it was my business, since we weren't their to actually "treat." Probably a mistake on my part. I did ask one question about how to respond to when group members become visibly upset. The second group we held, a man was just sitting there. Since he came to our first group, I knew that it was not like him to be sad like that during group. I asked him if everything was okay, but that seemed to make it worse and he shook his head no and started tearing up. I didn't know if it was my place to keep at it, so I told him that I hope he feels better and backed off. The supervisor said it would have been okay to see if he was willing to step out of the activity room and talk about what was bothering him. I kept that in the back of my head for a next time, but there was no next time.

Update (07/16/15) -- So, I got my eval today and I -- am -- SHOCKED! I mentioned that I anticipated that I would be rated average. For our FW scaling that would equal a 3, which is "meets standards, performance is demonstrated 70-89% of the time when behavior is necessary." However, I was rated a 4 in all categories except for "discusses/selects/implements interventions that demonstrate knowledge of characteristics of client/population." Wow! The supervisor's comments were "[Bemo] is a highly dedicated and conscientious learner. She exercises good judgment in treatment planning and interactions. Documentation skills are outstanding and demonstrate good observation and assessment skills. She will need to work to control occasional anxiety that appears to be related to a desire for perfection." Her feedback is similar to the constructive feedback that I typically get...my feedback seems to always be related to either my lack of confidence or my anxiety. I know it's my biggest area of weakness and I'm not quite sure how to address it, but I will continue to work on it!

Anyways, that about wraps it up. All-in-all, I'm proud that the supervisor thought I did a good job. The first round of FW 1's are all done! Yay.

Assistive Technology Seminar Day is tomorrow (July 17th, 2015) so I will be taking tons of pics to share with you guys! Look for that post in the next couple of days!

<3 Bemo

Pediatric FW 1 Experience: Recounts & Thoughts

So, woah, talk about missing in action!

To give ya'll an update, I'm completely finished with my pediatric FW 1 rotation. I finished the last week of June -- and yes, I passed! :) My mental health FW 1 rotation will be over next week.  I'm going to go ahead and sum up my experience with my peds rotation!

So, in my last blog post, I mentioned how unorganized and frustrating the rotation was. The frustration subsided as the days went on, but our role and purpose was still unclear. So to give you some background, the rotation was 2 weeks M-W -- so a total of 6 days. We were expected to be there around 7:45am on those days (unless it was "our day") and we left around 12pm (unless we needed to set up for the next day). When we got there, we would assist the leaders of the day with any last minute things they needed to set up. At 8:25am, we all gathered together for a "walk through". The leaders would tell us the behavior regulation activity for the day, the name tag activity, the script study activity, the word study activity, the sound study activity, the OT graphic station, and what the snack for the day would be. Then we went outside and waited for our "little friends" to arrive. At the end, before we headed out, we had a debriefing and discussed what went well and not so well. 

The group that I had was what they called the "higher level group." I worked with them in collaboration with one SLPS. I honestly wish that I would have had a more "lower level group." Although the kids in my group had several deficits in speech related areas, for the most part, they were developmentally appropriate in fine motor and gross motor skills. Their only deficits were in things like attention, behavior regulation, and sensory processing (two were sensory seeking and were unable to achieve the appropriate amount of vestibular and proprioceptive input). The two things that made it difficult working with this group were 1) we haven't had our pediatric class yet, we have it in the Fall and 2) it was hard finding a way to meet my "OT" goals, when the rotation had such a strong speech emphasis. 

This particular fieldwork rotation started as a "camp" put on my the SLPS. This year they tried something new by allowing OT students to assist with the "camp." However, because our role was never thoroughly established, the activities catered to speech's goals (remember when I said word, script, and sound study...yeah all speech). I guess their attempt of incorporating OT was by adding the OT graphics station. However, unless your child had fine motor deficits or sensory defensiveness, which mine didn't, it was just more for creative expression or any opportunity to work on attention and behavior related things . So, for my kids, it was hard to implement interventions to address their needs. For my counterparts that had lower level kids, they had more opportunities to work with their kids on handwriting skills or fine motor skills, which worked out great because handwriting meshed well with speech goals and fine motor skills could be worked on during OT graphics. Are you understanding? 

Anyways, so although I enjoyed interacting with my kids and everything, I don't really feel like I did much. I tried to work with them on following directions and turn taking. I also tried different transition activities between stations to try to increase attention like bear walks, stomping, big steps, etc. We also implemented a wiggle seat cushion because two of the kids were constantly rocking and fidgeting (the wedge seat worked better for them than the round one). I also took one kid aside and worked on his words for the script because I noticed he was really struggling and not getting the proper attention to be successful (not really OT related, but he ended up beasting his script by the end!). Other than that, that's about it. I didn't really feel like a valuable member of the team to be honest, but it was a unique experience. 

So in the end, I passed my fieldwork and received positive feedback from my supervisor. Even though I don't feel like I did anything special, she and the SLP clinicians that all contributed to my overall rating saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. We were also able to give feedback about the rotation and I expressed my thoughts on the form. 

Take away lesson: So, as with any experience whether bad or good, there is always something to take away from it. For this fieldwork, we had to write a daily SOAP note each day on the same kid. On the first soap note, we had to establish at least 2 goals for the kid based on our observations. It is always emphasized that your goals should be measurable, so I made my goals measurable -- I thought. However, what I realized is that you have to make sure that your measurable goals are realistically measurable. Are you actually able to measure your goals as written and will there be enough opportunities available to meet your goal as written. For example, if you say that the client will do something 4 out of 5 times within two weeks....will you actually be able to provide those 5 opportunities or will those times naturally occur? Also, are those opportunities expected to be given in one day (i.e., five opportunities each day) or over the course of two weeks (i.e., one opportunity for at least five of the days).  As another example,  if you say that a client will do something 80% of the time, will there realistically be enough opportunities for the client to meet that goal? Say that a client did something 3/4 times...There were 4 times the client could have done whatever but they only did it 3...that's pretty good right...right, but that's only 75%...goal not met.  Do you get what I'm saying? Also, with everything that goes on during a session, can you realistically keep up with the goal you have established...I didn't realize how hard one of my goals would be to track over a 2.5 hour period. A lot of things happen in 2.5 hours and my job was to help all kids, not just one, so my attention was being pulled in multiple directions the entire time. 

So my biggest lesson was to make sure I'm writing and establishing measurable, measurable goals. The more specific, the more realistic, the better. Think...if you had to miss a day of work and someone took your place, would they understand how to continue tracking your clients' goals based on what you wrote and could they effectively measure them? If the answer is yes, you are on the right track. If your answer is no, you may want to rethink how you are writing your goals. 

Helpful Resource: https://funandfunction.com/habitat/https-funandfunction-com-blog-wp-content-uploads-2015-06-activity-guide-june2015-web-pdf.html

I used this downloadable resource to help me come up with ideas for sensory breaks and transitions between stations. 

<3 Bemo

FW 1 Summer Experience: Day 1/2

Alright so I'm already off to bad start with meeting my goal of posting a daily update, but so far I'm still within the weekly goal.

There really wasn't much to say about yesterday, so I didn't feel compelled to write anything. I will have to be mindful of what I say in this post because I'm not sure who all will read it. So, this week is primarily focused on "training," planning, and set up. As mentioned in a previous blog post, I am currently in a pediatrics and mental health fieldwork.

If I can be completely honest my experience with the pediatric fieldwork has not been that enjoyable. So far it seems unorganized and incomplete meaning that essential details seem to be missing. I have been confused since day 1 and that confusion has not subsided much since then either. We are told what we are supposed to do, but not exactly how we are supposed to do it and sometimes not even when. On the first day, it was emphasized what things could cause you to fail fieldwork. There were many things mentioned and much of them were mistakes that could easily be made. Therefore, when things are unclear I find that I get really frustrated in fear that I will miss something and fail fieldwork. In my younger days, I was more of a "go with the flow" person, but since I have gotten older...not so much. I'm trying to work on it, but so far, no good.

Continuing on with pediatrics, when I heard "training" I thought we were actually going to be trained on the skills necessary to successfully plan and implement activities/interventions for these summer programs. However, so far, that has not been the case and today was really our last day of training. We went over the syllabus, our general role in the summer program, and discussed TEAMSTEPPS which is an evidenced-based model designed to optimize team performance.

Today was little bit more exciting, we did much more activities and such. Since we are working interprofessionally with speech language pathology (SLP) students we did an activity where we had 5 minutes to write on a large piece of poster paper what we thought the other profession did (e.g., SLP wrote what they thought OT did, and OT wrote what they thought SLP did). Then we did a campfire activity where one student acted as the "client" and sat on a wiggle seat cushion or an exercise ball and had to follow the woman in the front's directions using pretzels, hot tamales, and marshmallows. After the activity, we had to label the SLP components (e.g., receptive language, articulation, sensory components, protesting) and OT components (e,g., balance, posture, stability, attention, problem solving, fine motor skills) of the activity. Then a lady came and talked to us about behavior regulation and some of the activities we will be doing with the students. After that, we were broken into our programs where we discussed a bit more about the specifics and then had to plan all 8 days of the program. We were split into about 4 people per day and were responsible for planning the activities and snacks for that day. The planning was a little rocky, but it went smoother than I anticipated so that was good.

Overall, today was a good day. The issues didn't come about until it was time to wrap up and it was announced that X, Y, Z was due and that shopping was going to be done Friday. However, outside of shopping, it was not clear (and it still not clear) how Friday is going to go with setting up and everything. Right now i'm just playing the waiting game and seeing if there will be a clarification email of some sort sent out. If not, I'll have to ask my classmates and see how they interpreted everything. I'm hoping that once the planning phase is over and we actually start the program everything will fall into place. **fingerscrossed**

In regards to the mental health fieldwork, it is much more organized and clear. I'm looking forward to my mental health fieldwork much more! We toured the inpatient psychiatric unit today. It's a small facility, but I look forward to sitting in on one of the group's next week!

I could say more, but I'll end this post here.

<3 Bemo

Spring 2015 Semester Wrap Up

OMMGGG! Can you believe that I have OFFICIALLY completed my first year of grad school!!!??? I can't. It has definitely been an interesting year to say the least. It started off with anatomy, which was doable of course, but also very fast paced, stressful, and difficult.

Then, there was the fall semester which actually wasn't too bad. The courses themselves and the assignments, tests, projects -- all that, were very manageable. The only thing was my mind wasn't right so my motivation was below sea level. If your mind isn't where it should be the simplest of tasks become difficult.

Finally, there was the spring semester, which challenged me in many many ways. It was uncomfortable, but a much needed experience for both personal and professional growth. I have always understood the importance of being able to work well in a group, but it is something that I have always struggled with. This semester we had crap loads of group projects. I worked well in the groups that were just me and one other person, but the ones with 3 or 4 people to a group were stressful because the dynamics were sometimes off. I'm slowly learning to choose my battles and which projects are okay for me to take a more passive go with the flow role. I wouldn't label myself a perfectionist, but I take pride in quality work. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I like to give my best effort. Another thing that challenged me was "patient" interaction. In my blog post "Looking Beyond Conditions & Physical Interactions," I talked about the awkwardness I felt while interacting with clients at the ADC and how I struggled with feeling inadequate. During this time, I was also going through a "crisis." There were a series of events, that now I am unable to recall, that really challenged me and made me feel incompetent and I had a small break down. It was really bothering me because I have never felt so inadequate in my life and I didn't like how it felt -- very unsettling. As a result, I bought a ton of books with money I didn't really have, in an effort to soothe my discomfort. Three of the books pictured below are actually books required for the summer semester. I will picture them separately in my next blog post when I tell you about my summer semester adventures lol. But anyways, the other 13 books are completely supplementary. 

Row by Row; Right to Left:

(1) Stepping Into Handwriting, Creek's Occupational Therapy and Mental Health 6th ed., The Intentional Relationship, Documentation Manual for Occupational Therapy,

(2) Quick Reference Occupational Therapy, Quick Reference Dictionary for Occupational Therapy, Therapeutic Exercise Foundations and Techniques, Assistive Technologies

(3) Critical Reasoning in Occupational Therapy,  Optimizing Cognitive Rehabilitation, Activity Analysis Application to Occupation, Physical Agent Modalities

(4) Occupation-Based Activity Analysis, The Successful Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Student, The Wheelchair Evaluation, Spanish for the Occupational Therapist

The tests and content covered were also much more difficult. In preparation for the NBCOT exam, the professors have given us 3x more "NBCOT style"questions on tests and quizzes. There were quite a few tests that I felt no bueno about when I handed in my test. Fortunately, in the end, everything turned out well and I was able to pull through with all A's. One of the courses, " Foundations for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice" was combined with "Intro to Clinical Reasoning" and was counted as a Pass/Fail. 

This summer, we start our first fieldwork I rounds so I am definitely ready for a change in pace. I will give you more details in my next blog post!

<3 Bemo 

2nd Adult Day Center Experience

You will have to bear with me through this post because although it's not late, I'm extremely tired. So, anyways, in a previous post entitled "Looking Beyond Conditions & Physical Interactions" I mentioned that my last experience at the adult day center (ADC) was a hot mess and highly frustrating. I felt very incompetent and my weaknesses were definitely highlighted within the 3 hours that I was there.

I told you guys that if I had time I would let ya'll know how it went this time around. So, my partner and I had 2 "clients" -- the same 2 as last time. Prior to going to the ADC, I texted her and asked which client she wanted to be primarily over. After talking with my professor, I felt that this would be a good idea since I didn't get to participate much in the questioning or interact much with either client. She texted me back her choice and I told her I would take care of the one left. Because I was very anxious about going to the ADC out of fear of messing up or making a fool of myself again, I felt the need to prepare, prepare, prepare. Since this time around we would actually be performing assessments with the clients, I practiced the assessments by recording myself talking to space (my imaginary person). I also took the time to make some reference sheets that I could take with me to help guide my assessments. It was much of the same information in the manual but without all the unnecessary fluff and with a much bigger font size. Here are a few examples of the sheets I made: (you may have to click on the picture to see it better)

Digit Span Test: Forward Span 

Cognitive Performance Test: Shopping

Cut this paper in half and used it to help guide Activity Card Sort

Toggle Category Assessment 

I was so glad that I took the time to make these because it helped my assessments go pretty smooth! The only assessment that I did not make a sheet for was the ACLS-5 (Allen Cognitive Level  Screen - 5). My experience at the ADC was MUCH MUCH MUCH better this time around. I also got 2 hugs from two other members of the ADC. Another two people asked me to come sit with them. I told them that I would after I met with one more person (I didn't see a reason not too). Unfortunately, after I finished writing up all my notes, they were heading home :(. Oh well! The lady that I was working with had me write in her notebook what we did with the Activity Card Sort so that she could show her house parents. I'm not even sure if what I wrote many any sense! lol I was focused so much on getting through the assessments that I'm sure it ended up being gibberish. Plus, she made me sign it, so there is no denying that...yup that was me...and yeah I know what I wrote probably made no sense. 

Well i'm going to go ahead and get to bed. I'm going to a CEU from 8:30am - 5pm. Obviously I can't get CEU's but I like when going when I can because you get good information!

Ttyl <3

City of Binders

So in OT school we get A LOOTTTT of papers, handouts, and everything in between. Trying to organize it all has been a CHALLENGE. At first, I thought about just putting all the papers for a semester in a 4 inch binder -- and I did. However, it was heavy and not the easiest to navigate. Plus, our classes often overlap in material, especially when it comes to documentation, interviewing patients, and various conditions. Therefore, organizing by class isn't the best idea either.

So, instead, I decided that I would buy a crap load of binders and organize them by topic. It has been time consuming since I've had to rummage through my chaos of papers from all my classes pulling things out and putting them together with their mates. However, it's been well worth it. So far I have used 8 of the 13 binders I bought. Pictured to the right is a few examples of some of the binder topics I chose to group together (I have small hands so I could only hold so many lol). I'm still not done organizing everything. I still have a lot of papers to go through and I want to add a table of contents as well as some labeled dividers. When I finish organizing all the papers I haven't gotten thus far in my program I will share the completed "project." 

My next biggest challenge will be finding space for all of these binders. On top of all these binders, I also have a ton of OT related books. I have the ones that were required by my program, but I also bought other resources that I thought would be helpful throughout my career (I'll share all of them in a later post). Space won't be as big of an issue when I get my own place, but for now, I must deal with the space I have -- which isn't much. 

I'm also sure as the semesters go along I may have to either buy bigger binders, or group them differently, etc. etc. So, that will be interesting as it goes along. My ultimate goal is that all my papers (from May 2014 - May 2016) are well organized by the time Fieldwork II starts (June 2016). If I have all these resources but can't access them quickly then it's really pointless, in my opinion. 

Well, that about wraps up this blog post. Just wanted to fill ya'll in on my latest and greatest! lol :)