Biomechanics Blog I: Activity Analysis

Since I have been staying at home more, I have been wearing my glasses rather than my contacts.
When I wake up and go get my glasses they are typically on my bathroom counter. My starting position consists of standing upright with my arms extended down beside me, palms facing towards my body. As I go to reach for my glasses on the counter, both of my arms become slightly flexed at the elbows as I bring them up from the starting position. Next, both of my elbows extend out in order to reach my glasses laying on the counter. This step can also include shoulder flexion, depending on how high the counter/shelf your glasses are on. My MCP, DIP, and PIP joints all gently flex to grasp the sides of my glasses.

Health Literacy

When we have to go to a healthcare provider, we usually have paper work to fill out. Lets face it, we all have had a question we have seen and not fully understood how they wanted us to respond. One thing we do as humans, is sit there and answer to the best of our ability, because we don't want to feel ashamed to ask for help. This goes for our clients as well. There are clients out there that read on a different level, some may not be able to read at all, so it is our job as OT's to assist and make this process easier and less stressful.

As I finish up the material on health literacy, two things stood out to me the most.

OT Meme's

For the OT meme's I made, I narrowed it down to two. Thus, I couldn't decide on which one to choose, so I decided to post both!

{ Based off of the movie "Bird Box" }

"Nature Based Therapy"

Yellowstone 2012

I got the opportunity to listen to a podcast that focuses on whats called "Nature Based Therapy." As soon as I saw the title, I instantly felt like this was something I could connect too. I have always been drawn to the outdoors, because it is where I find peace and adventure. As an occupational therapy student, I can see me doing a session like this. Amy Seymore, the OT that is behind the nature based therapy, spoke on what her sessions consist of. One of the main diagnosis she sees, are those who have sensory processing disorder. What she tries to focus on, is getting those clients out into nature where their are numerous objects for intervention, such as water, sand, mud, dirt, grass, and even gardens.

"Blissful Ordinariness"

When you hear the term "blissful ordinariness" what do you think of?

In the field of occupational therapy, we focus holistically on our clients occupations and what they hold value and meaning too. As occupational therapists, we want to make sure our client achieves their goals to get back to living in their "blissful ordinariness." I feel that this term focuses on our tasks we do on a day-to-day basis. We don't think about how much those mundane tasks mean to us until we get injured and lose the ability to do some of those ordinary tasks. I have been injured a few times and it may not have been major, but I realized how much I relied on that injured area while doing certain activities.

My OT Area of Interest

I have always been one who wanted to dip my toes in to several areas of occupational therapy. I like the thought of outpatient clinics, geriatrics, and have put some thought into specialized areas as well, but one area that has stood out to me the most, has been pediatrics. I have volunteered for a pediatric organization called The Rein-Bow Riding Academy for the past 3 years and have loved every minute of it. It is where those with disabilities and special needs come to have therapy on horses. It has been so rewarding,

A Look into Different Era's

This week, I have had the opportunity to learn about the 1940's through 2010's, with an occupational therapy spin on things. Each group had a decade and for me that group was the 1990's.
However, I learned so much through each decade that was presented. I want to start off with three pieces of information that stood out to me the most, those include: the first successful kidney transplant that happened in 1952, the first artificial heart made out of titanium and plastic was implanted in 2001, and the first ever black hole was pictured in space during the 2010's.

Now, throughout our presentations as a whole, we wanted to make sure we touched on the changes that were happening in our field of occupational therapy. In the middle of the 2000's, the bionic arm was created for a man, that just wanted to get back to living like he did before he lost both of his arms. He wanted it to provide