My OT Adventure

Today, Professor Flick spoke about health and how it relates to occupational therapists. I found many of the points she spoke about to be very interesting but one of the things that left me speechless was a video she showed our class. The video was interviews of clients, or patients, at doctor's offices who had lower reading levels. The interviewers asked them questions about their experiences, medicines they may be taking, or their understanding of their own diagnosis. I was in shock by their responses, about how much they did not know and understand and how uninvolved they are in their medical process. I was also in disbelief to think that health professionals go about their daily routine like this. Professor Flick made me much more aware of this problem and how important it is for me as an OT student to advocate this. Along with advocating, I am now much more prepared and aware of this problem for when I am an OT practitioner and able to change this in my own practice. Another t...

The scapulohumeral rhythm is the ratio of movement between the scapula and the humerus which is clinically relevant for many reasons. Some of these reasons being that it plays a huge part in the ROM of the shoulder and it allows 180 degrees of motion by assisting the movement between the scapula and the humerus. This includes assisting the humeral head to rotate laterally to get the greater tubercle out of the way of the coracoacromial arch, in order to achieve the full ROM. The scapulohumeral rhythm also allows optimal length-tension relationships (generally the midpoint ROM) between the muscles involved in this action which is considered to be the ideal length of a muscle. Along with this, the scapulohumeral rhythm increases joint congruency which in turn decreases shear forces and plays a part in allowing full ROM of the shoulder. The scapulohumeral rhythm directs the correct positioning of the humeral head (convex surface) to be placed on the glenoid fossa (concave surface), wh...

             After reviewing the podcast "Can Occupational Therapy Help with ADHD?" I can definitively answer this question as, yes! There is a lot of overlap between the diagnoses of sensory processing disorders and ADHD, but both can benefit from occupational therapy. It was very interesting for me to hear about the specific techniques and stories of children who have been diagnosed and gone through occupational therapy. For example, I had never heard of the broken crayon technique that teaches children to adapt and adjust their habits and activities. Dr. Lancaster continues to promote that parents, therapists, teachers, etc. need to be proactive with these children and not just do these adaptive techniques when they are in trouble and going downhill. Another aspect of this podcast that I found to be compelling was the "just right challenge." This challenge supports the concept of a child stopping occupational therapy at a certain time (the OT will k...

ROM is the amount of movement being looked at of a specific joint. When measuring ROM, the therapist will use a goniometer (placed in the proper position) to produce an accurate degree of how much the individual can move that joint. When using the goniometer, it is important for a therapist to palpate bony landmarks and place the joint in a proper position in order to enable consistency and reliability. This is to ensure that each therapist measuring ROM is using the same techniques, therefore, getting the same results and producing positive intrarater and interrater reliability.   The manual muscle testing (MMT) measures the strength or weakness of an individual’s muscle and should begin in the same position (test position) each time which will produce the greatest contraction. The test position is generally in mid ROM and can be done against gravity or in an eliminated gravity position. When producing the test against gravity, the individual’s strength will be rat...

Every morning I wake up and I wash my face. I start with my shoulder and arm flexed and my digits/thumb are extended to wash, and end with my shoulders extended to rinse my hands.  I first reach my arm over using my transverse plane about the longitudinal axis to turn the sink on. Then I use my sagittal plane about the frontal axis to flex my shoulders and arms to wash the soap on my face and to rinse my face. Lastly, I use the sagittal plane about the frontal axis to extend my shoulders and arms to rinse my hands under the sink. Regarding the osteokinematics of the shoulder, I am using flexion to extension of the shoulder in an open kinematic chain. Regarding arthrokinematics of the shoulder, the glenoid fossa of the scapula (concave surface) is stabilized and the humerus (the convex surface) is rolling posteriorly and gliding anteriorly. The primary mover, or agonist, in shoulder extension in this scenario is the anterior deltoid. This is working eccentrically because it is ...