Poop

By Mariel | Published January 18, 2012

Some times, you just don’t want to think about it. A lot of times, I don’t even want to acknowledge it. But yes, it really is a part of my life. There is poop in my job! Literally. I am proud to be an occupational therapist. I think it’s great fun. It is so rewarding to help people achieve independence in their daily lives. But some times….poop happens.

I don’t typically spend my days wiping butts. It is not in my scope of practice. Part of my job, as an OT, is to train and educate people on toileting, toilet hygiene, safely getting to the toilet. It’s possible to educate someone who has had a stroke how to wipe with the other hand or advise a pt on assistive devices for wiping.

Today I wiped three butts. It’s a nursing thing to do that but some times, at work, the nurses and aides are so busy. I only have so much one on one time with my pt, I don’t want to waste it waiting for someone to wipe the butt. The thing that made me laugh today was that one of my pts had explosive bowel movements. One thing that delays pt discharge is whether the pt has had a bowel movement or not. This one pt had not pooped since Saturday. The MDs had ordered 6 different items to help with his poop. Metamucil, stool softeners, lactulose. Poor guy. He was so blocked up one minute, the next he’s rushing to the bathroom with explosions. I mean, he almost fainted, he was so tired from all the exertion! It could have been a real emergency if he had fainted in the bathroom after having all those bowel movements! Poor guy.

It was just part of my day.

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Brains update

By Mariel | Published August 25, 2011

I have great news! My pt (the one highlighted in the “brains” post) is doing so much better! He is going to transfer to acute rehab soon. Acute rehab is a great place! The pts get at least 3 hours of therapy a day there, usually a combination of physical, occupational and speech-language therapies. It’s pretty intense and it tries to simulate a home environment as much as possible. For OT, you could be cooking in a kitchen with the pt, doing golf, dressing, showering…more advanced tasks that you’d normally do in your daily routine. It is a pretty fun place to work too. Each facility has different features. The one my pt will be going to has weekly outings for community integration, pet therapy, a healing/meditation garden and a brain injury support group.

I am so proud of him. He has improved so that he is talking in 5 word sentences appropriately, he is using both upper extremities more often in bilateral integration, he is less expressive aphasic and has improved in his left sided neglect. Medicine is obviously helping him, but you cannot deny the impact that therapy is having on his life. Each time he performs a task, his brain is forging a neural pathway. I always tell my patients that “practice makes perfect.” I guess I should really be saying , “practice makes better,” but it just doesn’t sound as good.

All that marketing for brain games, puzzles, board games…it’s not baseless. Simple things like playing Connect 4, doing Highlights magazine puzzles, and naming objects are stimulating brain activity and motor coordination. Simple things that really make a difference. Just ask anyone who’s worked with someone with a brain injury. The brain is very plastic. It’s amazing.

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It pays to volunteer!

By Mariel | Published July 26, 2011

WHY DO I NEED TO VOLUNTEER BEFORE I GO TO OT SCHOOL?

I think it’s a great idea to volunteer before you fully decide that you want to be an occupational therapist. I’ll share my story.

I took human anatomy and physiology in high school.  I thought this was such an amazing class. It was so awesome to me to learn all the muscles and organs of the human body. I went into undergrad thinking I wanted to do something humanities based. But 3 weeks into my freshman year, my dad got diagnosed with colon cancer. The physician had drawn a picture on the whiteboard in my dad’s hospital room, showing where the tumor had grown and where they needed to re-sect it. I saw that drawing and thought, “Oh my gosh! I know where that is! This is so cool!” So that one incident made me realize I wanted to change my major and learn the human body more. The college I went to had a kinesiology program, so I decided to change my major to kinesiology with an emphasis in pre- physical therapy. Lucky for me, there was an acute rehab hospital just down the street from my college. I signed up to volunteer. I stuck to the physical therapists like glue. I was their shadow. I saw everything they did with their patients. Of course, I had to do boring things like make copies and file home exercise programs, but who cares? I was seeing real patient contact. I was seeing sick people and watching them get better. I saw a lot of strokes at acute rehab. I then moved to outpt physical therapy. That was so different. I felt like I was at a gym. There were a lot of machines. I thought it was boring. I did get to observe the certified hand therapist, who was also an occupational therapist, while I was there. I couldn’t believe there was a therapist who only focused on hands! The injuries she saw were kind of gnarly. After that, I decided I needed to find out what occupational therapy was all about. How was she able to focus only on hands?

It was in OT where I observed so many different compensation techniques, functional activities, observed functional transfers. I just thought, “Man, this is really cool!” Plus, the OTs had all these cool toys and things to use for therapy. That’s how I made the switch. I am really happy I decided to study occupational therapy. In what other job could I be playing Connect 4, gardening, or educating a pt on showering? Seriously? I get paid for this? I love my job.

 

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7/14/2011

By Mariel | Published July 15, 2011

I have a student!…kind of.  I have committed myself to letting someone shadow me so that she can get the observation hours of occupational therapy to put on her application for OT school. Ack! It’s kind of nerve-wracking. This person is analyzing my every move, probably wondering if other OTs work like me, talk like me, do the same ADL techniques or exercises as me. It’s kind of weird to think about it.

I remember when I was a volunteer in the acute rehab setting. Boy, did I love it! I thought the OTs were so cool, what with all the different toys, equipment and games to do with the patients. The only really interesting thing PTs did with patients was ball toss.  I just think it’s so amazing all the skill and analysis that OTs are taught. Seriously, one of my assignments in OT school was analyzing how someone made coffee! My whole class had to break it down, to the smallest body parts, body functions, cognitive process, the steps and sequencing. But that’s just it, right? OTs are supposed to be the masters of activity analysis. That is the basis of what we do. We break things down. We grade things to make them easy or challenging for our patients. One of my favorite OT professors called it the “just right” challenge. And that’s what we are all doing. In any setting, we are making the “just right” challenge for our patients to complete tasks and activities, succeed, and function better. Ah….I love OT!

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