Media Project Assignment: "Dressing Pan"

 For this project, I was assigned to use a cookie sheet as my household item. My client's name was Paula and she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. She is a 76 year old woman who used to teach history at a college. She is stated to be a strong willed and independent woman. She wants to be able to do things like bathing, dressing, and communicating with her college peers and husband again independently. She currently lives in a skilled nursing facility, but would like to be back home with her husband. It is important to her that she becomes more independent again so she can move back home. She is not too fond of occupational therapy services and really doesn't understand what it is or what she is doing. She does not like group therapy sessions either. When trying to come up with an innovative idea for Paula to use, I thought about the things most important to her. She wants to be home with her husband and be able to take better care of herself. I knew then that I wanted to come up with something that would help with dressing herself. I know not being able to do that can feel demeaning to her. She stated that it take forever for her to button up her blouse or shirt. I wanted her to be able to do that, but in a way that would be interesting for her to practice. When I observed an OT before getting into the program, I had seen a device used to help children develop fine motor skills like buttoning up a shirt. I knew that the same device would not work for Paula since she had tremors and the device I had seen before was flimsy and that would only make things worse. 

I decided that I could use the cookie sheet as a stabilizer for button device. It would provide support and stability a person with tremors would need. I decided to get a variety of button sizes so it would give a range of difficulty. Shirts are made with all different button sizes so I thought it was important to practice with the easiest ones and the most difficult ones. I knew fine motor skills start to deteriorate when a person is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, but I never really thought about the specific skills that would be hard for them to do. Practicing buttoning a shirt seems like a child task, but it is important for day to day life. Most jeans and pants have some sort of button that you have to work with. I see now that it could be so frustrating for a person who develops PD. They would struggle every time they got dress, every time they had to undress, or even every time they had to go use the bathroom. It would take up so much time struggling to button or unbutton something. Practicing with a support allows them to focus on just the button and not about if they will drop the fabric or not. 

Doing this assignment gave me a great appreciation to all the OTs before me who have came up with such creative interventions for their clients. It took me a few days to thing what I could do that would be the most helpful for my individual client and also thinking how other clients with the same diagnosis could use it. It also taught me how to look at the personal details in a case. Yes there are things that are somewhat routine for diagnosis like Parkinson's disease, but it is important to look at what the client wants to accomplish at the end of treatment versus what you may want as a standard care. Diseases that are degenerative are the worst to be. I cannot even imagine what it must feel like to know how to do something one day and not be able to do it the next. This assignment has given me an insight to how a client may feel. I feel like I will be a better occupational therapist because I know that they want to get better just as much as I want them to. It has also taught me to be creative and try new skills for the sake of an intervention. I did not know how to sew a button to fabric, but I asked my mother to teach me and now I have a new skill that I can put to future use! I really enjoyed doing this assignment because it made me think and try to create something fun!

Here is a link to watch me explain just what a "Dressing Pan" is!! :) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzGXBJv2e8o

Neuro Note #5: CVA (Stroke)

I chose to review a video/article about a lady named Katherine Wolf. It was called "Having a Stroke as a New Mom Changed Everything, but I'm Treating it like a Gift". There was a video interview done of Katherine's life now and how she goes about being a mom after her stroke. She was 26 years old when she had a stroke. The type of stroke she had was a massive brainstem stroke. It was caused by the rupturing of a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM). She had a 16 hour surgery where more than half her cerebellum and many inter-cranial nerves were removed. The doctors had told her husband that the odds of her surviving the stroke were not good. She was in a coma for two months. Six months prior to her having the stroke she had a baby boy. When she finally woke up from the coma, she had to relearn how to do everything over again. She stated that she was learning all the developmental milestones as her child was at about the same time. She was paralyzed on the left side of her face. She could not walk at all, but now she uses a wheelchair at times and a cane. About 7 years after her stroke she got pregnant with another baby boy. She talked about how hard it was at the beginning to come with terms that she was no longer able to take care of her baby and that she needed to be taken care of herself. Her whole life changed at the age of 26, but now she has come such a long way. Katherine and her husband decided to start a non-profit organization to help families like theirs to come to terms with being a family with disabilities. I decided to do this topic because I have a story similar to Katherine's story. My uncle had a stroke in his mid 40s. The doctors even told our family that he had a 3% chance of surviving. He was also in a coma for a month. Thankfully he survived and is still with us today. Unlike Katherine, he didn't have such good luck with his recovery process. He is in a wheelchair, has no control of the lower extremities, cannot feed or bathe or change himself, he has double vision now, and has slurred speech. The thing that impacted his recovery process was that he started to develop tremors about a month after he woke up from the coma. He still has them but not as bad as when they first developed. It changed his and our families lives. He was the mechanic of the family and it kills him not to be able to do the things he loves anymore. But just like Katherine, my uncle has found a stronger root in his faith. He believes that everything happens for a reason and he is so thankful to still be here today. I really enjoyed listening and reading about Katherine Wolf. It is inspiring to know that she didn't let the stroke define her. It is also encouraging as a future occupational therapist to see success stories of how important therapy is for stroke patients. I can see how similar her story and my uncles story was. It is so important to know the types of CVAs to know how bad effects can be on a person. I would recommend people to watch the video and read the article because it shows how someone can adjust their life and overcome a big obstacle. The brain is so complex and has so much control over all of the body. We need to appreciate it and be thankful that we are able to be independent in our daily life. 

Video & article source: 

Bryant, K. (2019, July 25). Having a stroke as a new mom changed everything, but i'm treating it like a gift. Retrieved from https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/having-a-stroke-as-a-new-mom-changed-everything-but-im-treating-it-like-a-gift/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=health_health&utm_content=video_internalcrosspromotion9

Neuro Note #4: ALS

 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is one of those terrible diseases that we still do not have a cure for. ALS is a condition that affects the nervous system in the brain that causes loss of muscle control. I read a blog post called "One Year" by a man named Ray. He gave a personal perspective of how ALS affects ones life. He had a whole blog about his journey of living with ALS, but his blog post tells about his first year living with ALS. He talks about the process of telling everyone close to him that he had ALS. He said it was the hardest thing he had to do and that it was draining. He felt that way because he didn't know what to say and the people he told didn't know what to say either. I can only imagine being diagnosed with an incurable disease and having to tell everyone I know that I was dying and there is nothing that can be done about it. It is hard to process the thought of dying yourself, but knowing that you are telling people awful news cannot be easy at all. With this disease, there is no specific time line of how fast the muscles will start loosing their function. Ray thought that in a year he would still be pretty much the same as he was when he was diagnosed. He found that it wouldn't be true. He was getting tired very easily. He had trouble eating independently, and it took him a long time to finish each meal. I feel as he felt that he was a bother to those around him because he stated that people usually were cleaning dishes around him and he felt bad that he couldn't help. He also stated that it took him a while to get dressed with help and it was even harder to do it by himself. He had to have a whole new wardrobe since being diagnosed with ALS so that it would be easier for him to get dressed by himself. Reading through his experience should make anyone feel blessed that they can do simple things as dressing themselves independently and to not take anything for granted because it can be gone so soon. I wanted to read this blog post to see what life was like at the initial start for someone who has been diagnosed with ALS. This is the perfect blog to read for someone to get the perspective on the person diagnosed. We can read all about the diagnoses and symptoms of ALS, but knowing how a person diagnosed with it lives helps me understand the disease better. I learned that the best thing you can do for a person diagnosed with this disease is to be there for them and help them learn how to adapt to the new living situation. It is important that they know all the effect of the disease and how to properly prepare their current living environment. It is important for them to know that there is no specific time line for when the muscles will lose function. It is also important for them to have a support system. They will need someone to help them function independently in their daily life. I strongly recommend reading the whole blog by Ray. It give a great perspective on how he found joy through this trial in his life and what to expect of someone who is diagnosed with ALS. 

Photo & Blog from: 

Rays Little Ride. (2016, May 24). One Year. Retrieved from https://rayslittleride.com/2015/12/16/one-year/  

Neuro Note #3: Traumatic Brain Injury

Concussions are classified as a serious type of traumatic brain injury. Concussions happen all the time, but most of the time to children. A concussion happens when a person has a serious blow or impact to the head. It takes a lot of force to hit the head for a person to sustain a concussion. I decided to watch the TEDtalk "Protecting the Brain Against Concussion" by Kim Gorgens. I think she did an outstanding job presenting information on this subject. I decided to watch this TEDtalk because I have always been curious about the effects concussions have on children who play sports. Both my brothers and my fiancé have played football and sustained a concussion from the sport. It is a very serious and scary situation to be in. Depending on the level of severity of the concussion, the person can be a little light headed and have a headache or they can be completely disoriented and nauseous. My younger brother didn't get completely disoriented, but he got nauseous and had a headache for a week. Thankfully, the coaching staff contacted my parents right away and they were able to take him to the hospital to get an MRI to see if there was any permeant damage. We were relieved when the scans came back and there was no damage. We were worried because this was his second concussion. He had one before when he was little at his daycare. They were riding kids around on four-wheelers and they ran over a bump and he fell off and hit his head on the ground. Kim Gorgens stated in her talk that once you first sustain a head injury, the chances of getting a second injury is higher and it keeps getting higher the more times you injure your head. She also said that high school athletes are three times more likely to have serious injuries to the head and it usually takes them longer to be symptom free. The second time my brother had a concussion, he was a senior in high school and it happened during practice after school one day. Since his headache lasted for a full week, they required him to sit out that week plus a full week after the last day his head hurt. I am thankful that there are rules and guidelines in place like that to protect these children. I feel like there should be some rule put in place that makes the schools record how many times a child sustains a concussion and that after three times they shouldn't be allowed to play the sport anymore.  Having multiple traumatic brain injuries can have a negative affect to the brain in the long run. Kim Gorgens talked about a research study that was conducted on retired NFL players. It was actually the wives of the players who wanted the study done. They were all concerned because their husbands were young and seemed very forgetful all the time. This research study showed that NFL players who have had three or more traumatic brain injuries to the head or concussions had a higher chance of getting demented diseases at a young age. Kim stated that there are three things people must to do to try and prevent concussions. They need to study and be educated on the subject, they need to do something about it, and they need to make sure there is protection in place. I loved those three steps that she talked about. There needs to be more guideline put into action to protect these children and athletes from sustaining so many brain injuries. It should be a top priority to protect the minds of our youth. If everyone cared a little more about the affects concussions had, I strongly believe would could come up with a solution to lower the statistic of people who sustain brain injuries. I strongly recommend parents, teachers, coaches, athletic departments, and even athletes to watch this TEDtalk and educate themselves on how to protect the brain. Kim Gorgens did a fantastic job of explaining how you can start to protect the brain from injury.



Gorgens, K. (May 2010). Protecting the brain against concussion [Video]. TED Conferences. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/kim_gorgens_protecting_the_brain_against_concussion#t-541603