fUTure OT2B

For my last Neuro Note, I watched the Ted Talk A visual diary: On dementia and caregiving given by Tony Luciani. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSfMx6Mr1eE. Luciani starts off talking about how his 91 year old mother was diagnosed with dementia and then moved in with him. He struggles with adapting from his normal routine of being independent and living on his own to caring for his mother. He felt lost until he had an 'aha' moment when he realized that his mother loved being in the photographs that he takes for fun. Luciani is an artist and photographer and he bonded with his mother through taking photos of her and using her as one of his subjects. Luciani learned quickly that even though his mother's short term memory was fading, she still remembered much of her childhood. They acted out scenes from her youth and he photographed them, which gave them both a sense of purpose. He kept her mind active by quizzing her about her youth and then staging photos depi...

I had an amazing opportunity to attend a Memphis Rolling Grizzlies practice with my occupational therapy class. I have always been interested in adaptive sports and I was extremely impressed by how limber and agile the players were. Their diagnoses ranged from spinal cord injuries, amputations, and everywhere in between. I was interested to learn that each player was 'ranked' by the level of their severity to determine who is on the court at each time. There could not be too many high functioning players to make it more fair. I liked the inclusive nature of the way the game was set up. A 'double dribble' in adaptive basketball is when a player touches the wheels of their chair more than two times with the ball in hand. The game is set up to give each player a fair shot at success. I was very impressed to hear how one player got a scholarship to play wheelchair basketball in college.  I enjoyed watching the competitiveness of the players, es...

I was intrigued by this assignment as soon as I heard about it. When I drew 'egg carton', I was wondering how I could make this household item into a meaningful intervention for a client. My client, Maurice, is diagnosed with PD. He struggles with isolation and was a dairy farmer before he had to lease his land due to his diagnosis. He also has rigidity in his limbs. I thought and thought about something I could do with an egg carton that would be meaningful for Maurice. I initially thought that I would turn the egg carton over and use it as a stand for card games for him to play during an intervention, or use the individual slots in the egg carton to create a game for us to play. I did not think this was client centered enough and was lost for ideas. I finally had an 'aha' moment when I thought about what Maurice did before his diagnosis. He was a dairy farmer, so he obviously spends a lot of time outside. He currently spends a lot of time in bed and reports feeling lo...