Allie's OT Blog

What stood out to me during the lecture on driving and community mobility was how many different client populations could benefit from occupational therapy interventions in this area. Some diagnoses mentioned that are commonly seen by a certified driving rehabilitation specialist were traumatic brain injury, stroke, spinal cord injury, amputations, Alzheimer’s Disease, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy. Some services provided to clients within this area of driving and community mobility are work hardening, driving rehab, low vision rehab, vestibular rehab, industrial services, and pressure mapping/wheelchair assessment. Adaptive driving programs aim to assess individuals for safety and potential to drive, evaluate persons with disabilities for appropriate adaptive equipment, and to train individuals in use of adaptive equipment and/or compensation techniques for driving. Driving/community mobility is a huge aspect of independence, so this is a very important and ...

I have always been interested in nutrition, so I was excited to learn that we would have a lecture given by a registered dietician as part of our curriculum in occupational therapy school. This is an area in which I believe OTs have a great opportunity to partner with dietitians to provide the best care possible for our clients. Nutrition is one of the foundational pillars of our health, as it affects our physical, mental, and psychological well-being. What we choose to put into our bodies can have a profound effect on not only our health, but on therapy outcomes as well. One of the biggest takeaways from the lecture that I learned was that RDs often have to advocate for their profession, much like OTs do as well. Nutrition and OT are both fields that are commonly misunderstood. RDs might hear, “You help people lose weight through a diet, right?” and OTs hear, “Oh, you help people get jobs?” Both professions have so much more to them than it might seem from the outside. ...

After comparing my glyph drawing from last to year to the one I drew this year, I was surprised by how similar they were. The fact that I did not change many features of my glyph means that my thoughts on certain aspects of leadership have not changed since last year. In my drawings, the face shape remained a square, which indicates that I have a strong belief that leadership stems from nature over nurture. Although I do believe that some people are born with a stronger ability/personality to lead, I think that it has a great deal to do with influences that impact you throughout your life. The eyes in my original drawing were small, but this year I drew them large. This indicates that my thoughts shifted from believing that there is a mix of leaders and non-leaders in the field of OT to believing that the vast majority of OTs are leaders. I think that this thought shifted during the last year as I gained experience in OT school and fieldwork experiences. As OTs, we ha...