Dopamine: Neurotransmitter

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"I can't believe it's in a butter tub!" OT537 Multimedia project

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For the multimedia project I was assigned a 51-year old woman with MS and a butter tub. Alice was diagnosed with secondary-progressive multiple sclerosis. She has been experiencing fatigue, numbness/loss of sensation in the hands and forgetfulness. Before the diagnosis Alice enjoyed gardening but hasn't been able to take care of one recently. My goal is to demonstrate and explain the purpose of Alice's OT intervention while using a butter tub to engage Alice in gardening again.  When brainstorming ideas for this project I really had to think about the needs of the client in respect to what I could do with the tub. I decided planting aloe vera would be a simple but meaningful activity for Alice. I consulted with my dad to decide on aloe vera. My ah-ha moment was his approval. Yay! It will work! I like that aloe serves the purpose of burn relief. I would also suggest herbs or something small that could grow on a window sill.  This project definitely allowed me to look at a simpl...
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Health Literacy

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Health literacy is important in all aspects of the healthcare field. Somewhere between health disparity and health equity we find this significance. We want to be able to provide high quality service to all of our clients. Communication is key in doing this. As Dr. Flick pointed out in her presentation, health literacy is dependent upon communication skills between lay persons and professionals. This means understanding your client's level of cognition and language skills. If you have a client that has an exercise science degree you may use terms like "gait" or "ambulate." However, if you are seeing someone without that background knowledge you are not going to be successful in communicating a description of the way they walk. In a sense you will have to "dumb down" your language for lay people and recognize that your clients probably haven't had the training that you have had. The podcast on social disparities emphasizes having empathy and deliver...
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Implicit Bias

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Implicit bias are the subconscious decisions your brain makes upon interacting with others. Our impression of others is formed by the way they look, speak, smell, move, etc. We identify these traits and categorize or stereotype the person we are interacting with. This is a natural process that embeds our preconceived notions about people into our interactions. My big take-away from this session is that we can learn to 'unlearn" our negative preconceived notions. This relates to neuroplasticity which we are learning about in neurobiology. Neuroplasticity is our brains' ability to reorganize by forming new neuronal connections. We do this when we unlearn or reorganize our implicit biases (in a conscious effort). It is very important for OT's to address their own implicit bias. We are in healthcare. We will see a variety of people with a plethora of problems. We can't allow ourselves to make a snap judgement about the client based on their appearance or the problems...
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