Simulated Client

Today we had simulated clients come into the department (they are retired nurses) so that we could practice doing ADL/IADL assessments on them. We went in pairs to perform the assessment.
I was so nervous and did not really feel prepared before we went in there but once we got going I really thought it was a great experience. I was in charge of monitoring blood pressure and performing the ADL assessment. Our 'client' was so nice- she had COPD,  Congestive Heart Failure, Schizophrenia, Diabetes and a Bronchial Infection! whew did you catch all that??

ADL form

our case study

Pediatric Client: Treatment Session 2

Last Thursday we had our second treatment session with our little kiddo! And our prof videotaped us...yeah I don't ever want to see that video haha I hate how I sound on camera.

We worked on finger identification, handwriting and radial digit isolation and shoe-tying
*For finger ID- we had 3 pairs of gloves (working on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th digits mainly) and had one of those fingers cut out of each glove so when he put the glove on either his 2nd, 3rd or 4th digit was sticking out and not covered by the glove. Then we had him close his eyes, i touched a finger and had him identify it by name.
I was so happy that he met his goal of identifying fingers with 90% accuracy by last week :) We will still review it these next two weeks tho.
*For handwriting, we flattened a piece of play-doh out on the table and gave him a stylus. Then we traced a letter with our finger on his back and had him draw the letter in the play doh. Once we did a handful of letters like that, I just had him write the alphabet on a sheet of lined paper so see how he was with writing every letter like he would be expected in the classroom. Only one reversal, but some inconsistent letter sizes and spacing between letters.
*For radial digit isolation we "fed the tennis ball". Kate had gotten two tennis balls and cut slits in them for mouths, them we decorated them with faces. He was to use his radial digits to pick up beads/pom-poms and put them into the tennis ball's 'mouth'. we also worked on handstrength with this too- sometimes we would be holding it open for him to put "food" into, and then sometimes he would hold the ball open while we put the 'food' in the mouth. He REALLY liked this activity so we may repeat it :)
*Annnd then there was shoe-tying. Oh I wish it were easy to teach this! We went from a shoe-tying book and tried to go page-by-page. He has the first step down pat, but its the from the "bunny ears"/loops and on that gives him trouble. This week we are going to do some backward chaining to try and teach him to tie his shoes. I REALLY want him to reach this goal in the next two weeks- I know his mom would be SO happy if he could tie his own shoes! =)

Only TWO more tx sessions before he will be discharged!

Pediatric Client: Treatment Session 1

Last week we started treating our pediatric clients! like I said before, we are treating in pairs. We each had to come up with our own goals (1 LTG, 4 STG's) and treatment activities for our session.
Last week we worked on handwriting, finger idenfication/isolation and shoe-tying.
For handwriting, we put shaving cream on a mirror and had him draw letters in the shaving cream, we also traced letters on his  back with our fingers and then had him draw the letter than he felt.
For finger isolation/identification we used finger monsters in a 'lesson' to go over all of the finger names. and then we had him draw his had on the paper, then label and color each finger a different color
then for shoe tying we had a paper plate with holes around the outside that he laced a shoe string around and then we helped him to tie a bow at the top (like a wreath) then decorate the plate.

It went really well and we got good feedback from our clinic supervisor, and our client seemed to enjoy the activities!

Tomorrow, we have our second tx session....we'll be working on isolating the radial digits, fine motor skills, handwriting and shoe-tying again.

Pediatric Client : parent interview + eval

This semester I'm in a Pediatric OT class. For this class this is a clinical component and we are actually seeing REAL clients, in pairs and under the supervision of our professor. I have clinic on Thursdays for an hour, and we'll see them until the end of November. The child I'm seeing is 6 1/2 years old and is in the first grade!
Two weeks ago we interviewed his mom for an hour and got to meet him. Kate (my classmate/partner) and I split up the questions and each talked to her for about 30 minutes. This was my second time interviewing a parent and I thought it went pretty well. It was about how I expected it but the mom had been through this process before so she knew what types of questions I may ask and the kind of information I was looking for. Asking the questions didn't go exactly how I planned bc she just talked and talked (which is good- the whole narrative thing) but I was so scattered with my interview notes that it made analyzing it a little difficult.
Yesterday we had G come back in for the evaluation. Kate and I chose to use the BOT-2- a test of motor proficiency, and we only did 2 of the subtests that covered Fine Motor abilities. It was my first time administering an evaluation to a real child. I had administered the Peabody twice to my professor, but it's different with an actual child. It went okay, it was pretty easy to administer and the items self-explanatory.
After that we had a clinical observation planned. It was an obstacle course with stations that had different activities. The stations were:
1. "treasure hunt" we had a big tub of rice with large foam beads of different shapes and sizes buried in it and had him find the beads and then lace them onto a string
2. we hid beads in play-doh and had him try and pick them all out.
3. Simon says
4. building with toothpicks and fruit snacks (idea from : http://www.pediastaff.com/blog/therapy-activity-building-with-toothpicks-and-gumdrops-3729)
5. finger painting/stamping. I printed out this tree and looked at finger isolation, then he tried to stamp with mini marshmallows (idea from: http://therapyfunzone.com/blog/2011/01/marshmallow-painting-for-fine-motor-skills/ )

Between the stations we set up things like a balance beam, a tunnel, scooter boards and textured circle steps.
Overall it went really well! we have to write up our eval report, a reflection paper for the interview/eval process and come up with goals and activities for next thursday when we start treating!