Plasticine, presentations and planning.

The environment and its affect on occupation.

This week we have explored how the environment can affect an individuals engagement and participation in occupations. This is a really interesting topic and I feel a very important core skill for an OT to consider all aspects of a persons environment as we look at people holistically. We looked at:

• Built environment
• Social environment
• Technological environment
• Financial environment
• Cultural Environment

We discovered that all of these environment contexts interlink and connect, and can all be affected by each other. My classroom group studied the technological environment in more depth and discussed the positives and negatives:

• Positives:

• Technology allows access to information
• Keeps people motivated to learn how to use technology
• Makes occupations accessible
• Engages people to develop new skills
• Promote Independence
• Connectivity
• Improve social skills
• Support disabilities – Communication apps for PECS etc
• Breaks down barriers
• Mobility - Mobility scooters 
• Assistive technology
• Equipment/machinery 
• Safety – Heat detectors, motion detectors

• Negatives:

• Difficult to keep up with
• Cognitive difficulties to keep up with how fast things change
• Hinders social skills - Children playing video games, not socialising with other children and not developing adequate social skills (Social environment)
• Isolating
• Virtual worlds - Avatars, internet dating, using social media.
• Education - people may not be cognitively able to learn new skills and how to operate new equipment.
• Accessibility
• Make vulnerable people more vulnerable – safe guarding
• Cost – budgets (Financial environment)
• Rural communities – No signal (Built environment)

Presentations and plasticine! 

This week we did a presentation based on a scenario given to our case study. Our scenario was that Joan Rivers at the height of her career had osteoarthritis in her hands. We studied this in depth using the compensatory frame of reference, critiquing it against other frames of reference. We discovered that you could use the biomechanical frame of reference primarily alongside the compensatory frame of reference as this focuses purely on movement and the body as a functioning machine. We explored; the condition Osteoarthritis, the OT process in this scenario and possible interventions, compensations and working on exercises with physio's in the wider multidisciplinary team. We related this directly to Joan Rivers and explored the occupations meaningful and personal to her through research, focusing on her self care, leisure and productivity.

To get the audience involved and experience what Joan may have been going through, I handed out writing practice sheets to which I asked them to write their name with their non-dominant hand. I asked how it felt and they answered things like "frustrating" and "weird!" 

I handed out some hand warmers because simple heat wraps and using hot water can be really effective to relieve arthritis symptoms.

I also handed out plasticine as manipulating plasticine is actually a really good activity to do to exercise your hands! It's fun too, you don't even feel like you're working! I think people enjoyed this task :)

Although I felt quite nervous I actually feel that doing all of these presentations is helping me to become more confident and I enjoyed involving the audience/group with an activity. 

This coming week we have another presentation and are designing our own occupational model of health. I also have a couple of deadlines coming up so it's time to start planning, reading and writing!

 I'll leave you with a picture

Over the next few weeks I will mostly be looking like this: