Lauren Murphy OT 425

Other populations that could benefit from the Magnetoss include people with:  multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, Huntington's disease, Guillain Barre syndrome, Parkinson's, and anyone who uses a wheelchair.

For my fourth neuro note, I watched a YouTube video by Kristen Graham about her life with myasthenia gravis. I didn’t have a firm grasp on what this disease entailed, so I chose this video to learn more about what it’s like living with this disease. In the video, Kristen talks about her life with myasthenia gravis, the mistakes she has made, and how she has improved her quality of life.   She was diagnosed at age 11 with myasthenia gravis. Her mother initially thought that she had Bell’s Palsy because her face was drooping. Doctors decided to remove her thyroid gland shortly after the diagnosis to help with the symptoms of the disease. About a year after surgery, she didn’t have any symptoms of myasthenia gravis. Health professionals told her to take care of her body to reduce the chances of relapsing. In her late teenage years, it was clear that she didn’t listen to her doctors.   She didn’t eat healthy, she drank excessively, and experimented with drugs. In addi...

 Pat Summitt is the first person I think of when the topic of dementia comes up. She was such an inspiring sports legend and I was proud to go to the University of Tennessee where she worked. During the case study presentation, Katherine said that some of her first symptoms of dementia were forgetfulness, confusion, and wearing inappropriate clothes for the weather. At first, Pat was in denial of her illness, but later came to terms with it and decided to step down as head coach at UT.  Pat Summitt had early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type. She quickly began to forget how to do activities of daily living along with motor skills. Her disease progressed faster than most, as she passed away not long ago. She is gone, but her accomplishments that she made in the sports world will never be forgotten.

Richard Pryor was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when he was in his forties. He was a famous American comedian and actor. Before he was diagnosed with MS, he had alcohol and drug addiction problems. He had a rough life growing up and developed depression as a young adult. He even set himself on fire in a depressive episode after taking drugs. Later, he was diagnosed with MS. He tried to perform as long as he could, but MS eventually halted his career. A great OT intervention would be to work on his memory skills to perform comedy routines. His short term goal would be to work on the performance in small chunks to build up to remembering the whole thing. 

My takeaway from this is that Huntington's Disease is that OT can be utilized a lot during the middle stages of intervention for this disease. OT can offer adaptive equipment at this stage, along with providing strategies for cognition and balance. Huntington's disease is a slow progression, but it is important to reevaluate HD clients since you never know when their functional performance can change.

I'm going to be honest that I didn't love Foundations at first, but I learned to love it along the way.  I think it's because I typically enjoy classes with exact answers like math and science. However, this class helped me enjoy the philosophical side of occupational therapy. I don't have the best memory, but I'm confident that the things that I've learned in this class will stay with me for a long time. The way the class is structured, helps facilitate learning in a way that makes you remember the content. I think that Professor Lancaster is an amazing teacher and I respect her so much for listening to what the students want and making changes. This shows that she is a lifelong learner. She doesn't just stick with the status quo, she's willing to make changes every year to create the best class that she can.

I chose TransFatty Lives to do my neuro note on because I heard great things about it in class and I really enjoy documentaries. I liked that this movie seemed to have a positive and humorous spin on such a devastating disease. This movie is directed by Patrick O'Brien, who has ALS. The film starts off with the beginning of his diagnosis. He asks the doctor in a joking manner how much time he has left. His humor and positivity throughout the movie helps him and his family cope with his diagnosis. I really admire his ability to be so positive in the really difficult moments of his disease. This movie was very helpful in showing the progression of ALS.  There is not very much footage out there showing someone as they progress with the disease. I love how vulnerable he is with this documentary.  He doesn't just show the good things like him pouring beers into his G-tube or him in the pool with his family, he shows the difficult scenes as well, like when his dad and brothers s...

Rowdy Gaines was a three-time Olympic swimmer.  After a swim meet, Rowdy was unable to feel his extremities and just felt a tingling sensation. A week later he was unable to walk at all. He was paralyzed for five weeks due to Guillain-Barre syndrome. It's crazy to me that he went from being in top physical shape to being paralyzed within such a short period of time. It's even more crazy that he recovered all the way to his previous level of functioning before the onset of Guillain Barre syndrome. The fact that he was in such great physical shape prior to the onset of Guillain Barre syndrome probably helped him recovery quicker. I like that Maggie included pool therapy as an intervention since it relates back to his favorite sport.

Lou Gehrig's name is commonly associated with ALS. He was one of the first famous celebrities to have ALS. He first noticed the disease when he started dropping items more frequently than he used to.  In addition, his batting average went down a lot within a short period of time which is when his team started to realize that something was wrong. The role of OT with Lou Gehrig would be to maintain his functional performance as much as possible and to offer him adaptive equipment so that he can complete ADL's and IADL's. In addition OT's would work on ROM and strength so that he could play baseball as long as possible, since that  is something that he loves to do.

I really enjoyed doing the "Goals that Need Improvement" worksheet in our foundations of OT class. It put what we were learning into a real life situation, which helps facilitate learning and memory of the material. It made me realize how important it is to be very clear and holistic when creating goals for clients. The goal must be appropriate and achievable, behaviorally-based, clear and understandable, functional, and measurable to be complete. One important part of this worksheet was making sure that each goal had a functional reasoning behind the action. It brings me back to the main lesson I've learned in foundations which is that the occupational therapy intervention must tie back in some way to a functional occupation. We can't just have our client pull our dimes in putty without explaining our purpose behind this action. Documenting is something that I'm very interested in learning more about because it is such a huge part of OT.

I love the phrase "just right challenge" in OT. This phrase is even more important than it sounds. If we aren't pushing someone hard enough than they may not improve. On the other hand, if we push someone too hard than they could injure themselves. The just right challenge means pushing someone to do something that is challenging yet not out of reach for them or too strenuous. If we don't challenge our clients then we won't see growth or maintenance of skills, which is the point of therapy. It's important to use clinical judgement to determine exactly how hard to push our clients in order to get the best results. It's important to get to know the clients on a personal level (if possible) to effectively challenge them. 

Many people may not see the importance of learning about culture in the healthcare field; however, it can have a huge impact on how a patient is treated. It is easy to dismiss a person as rude or ignorant if we don't understand their culture. In addition, people from other countries may have universal healthcare or may not have any access to healthcare.  This means, if they are visiting the U.S. they may or may not need to be informed more in depth on their options for healthcare. The more I've immersed myself in other cultures, the more I have learned that people on Earth are all more alike than different.  We all want to be liked and respected. As a healthcare professional, it is important to treat everyone the same no matter the person's race, ethnicity, or culture. It's also important to be open-minded and understanding of people who behave differently than ourselves. We were all born into this world as innocent babies and our genetics and the world has shaped us ...

For my second neuro note, I chose a TED Talk called Simple Hacks for Life with Parkinson’s.   TED Talks are fabulous because they are entertaining which means that they captivate a large audience while simultaneously being educational at the same time. Moreover, it makes learning fun.   I choose this particular TED Talk because geriatrics is one population I may work with after graduating from OT school. In addition, Parkinson’s disease is fairly common, so I’m interested to learn even more about it in case anyone I know is diagnosed with it in the future. In the TED Talk, Mileha Soneji talks about her experiences with her uncle, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.   She is a designer and because of her career she was interested in making something to help people with Parkinson’s disease live an easier life. She designed a no-spill cup that was inspired by her uncle who couldn’t drink coffee anymore without spilling it on himself. The cup...

After Fletcher Cleaves visited our class for our Neurological Aspects of OT class, most of our class went to the Rolling Grizzlies practice. I'm going to be honest, we had class from 8am until 5:30pm and a project due the next day so it was hard to find the motivation to attend; however, I'm so glad that I went. It was incredible to see the athletic ability that is required to play basketball in a wheelchair. At the beginning they did suicides down and back on the court for a few minutes, and then they went straight into a drill. They didn't get a break until about 20 minutes into their practice. This means that their arms were working non-stop that entire time. No wonder their arm muscles were so large. I really enjoyed watching the Rolling Grizzlies play basketball; it was an experience I will not forget.

There are several specialty areas in occupational therapy. Although the field is holistic, it is important to have areas of focus for more specific areas in health care that are not as prominent. Some specialty fields include low vision, driving and community mobility, and sensory. These are more specific areas that are not typically covered in general OT classes. OT's typically learn as they go in these specialty areas. An OT can often get certified in their specialty area. It's important to designate these specialty areas so that these smaller populations can get the best care that's specific to their disability or illness. Out of the specialty areas listed on the AOTA website, I find the obesity population to be the most interesting. I've always been really interested in health and nutrition, so I think that I would thoroughly enjoy working in this specialty area. Obesity is a huge health problem in America and this population of people can benefit from working wit...

On April 26th, Fletcher Cleaves was a guest speaker in our Neurological Aspects of OT class. We watched his video about the accident and it sent chills up my back. It was a very effective way to advocate for safe driving. Fletcher has such a lively and happy energy about him when he speaks. It's nice to see how positive he is about his situation. He isn't able to change his circumstance so he makes the best out of his situation. It was eye opening to hear about how Memphis has a very limited number of accessible apartments for people in wheelchairs. Because I am a typically functioning human, I don't really think about accessibility of buildings and housing. Fletcher gave me hope that if I ever had a SCI, that I could still live a happy and fulfilling life.

Robert Smith was a client of Haleigh's mom who has Parkinson's Disease. Robert had low muscle strength which affected his ability to do activities of daily living. The OT outpatient center implemented a four week therapy intervention called the LSVT Big Program.  The patient came four times a week and worked on gross motor movement and strength. Haleigh showed us videos of the client before and after the intervention; his improvement really was incredible. I'm surprised at how much the client was able to improve in just four weeks. It shows that a lot of work in a short amount of time can result in a lot of progress.