Keeping occupation front and center of every interaction an OT practitioner has with clients and anyone else involved with a case is a form of advocacy. ...

I left off last time with my mom grumbling about the task she was assigned in her first OT session at "Restive Acres."

There were two other clients sitting near mom in the therapy room. I didn't hear or see them talk to each other or with any of the staff in the room. One was working on a large puzzle; the other manipulating some blocks. The staff were chatting to each other.

OT1 came back ...

I met with A.'s new therapist on Monday, in order to tell her a little more about A. before she meets her. I really do like the woman, not only because she seems to know what she's talking about and understands important things to focus on, but also because she has a very calm, gentle, and laid-back demeanor. The woman has the sort of voice that could be used in healing meditation scripts -- it's a soothing and melodic ...

There's a ton of great content on our website -- so where do you start? We'll periodically blog the five most popular content items on OT Advance online. See what your fellow OTs are reading on www.advanceweb.com/OT!

ADVANCE's 2009 Salary Survey is tops this week:

A reader's comment on my 1/25/10 blog entry made me realize I left out some contextual information. I'll back up a little before telling you about mom's first OT session at "Restive Acres":

When OT1 arrived in mom's room, she addressed mom by her first name and stated her own. She then ...

It's amazing to me how every single time A. is having a bad week at school, the snow magically appears and notonly cheers her up by providing her tons of fluffy, white winter weather to play in, but also by conveniently shutting down the local school systems so that she gets a break from school. The weather didn't even make it to Knoxville until late Friday afternoon, but they shut down the schools in anticipation ...

Before I continue with the blow-by-blow account of my mom's experience with OT at "Restive Acres", I'd like to call your attention to something I just read.

A recent article¹ in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy (AJOT) describes how "an [occupational adaptation] approach provides the bridge between the application of clinical expertise, client-centered occupation-based therapy and ...

It is obvious that everyone in this profession is a giver.  They somehow get joy out of helping the people who come to them for help, or else they would not continue doing thegreat work they do.  BUT, as with all things, maintaining balance is an important component of sanity and key ingredient  to not burning out of any daily activity including your job.

Someone brought up the fact that getting new equipment for the gym has been getting harder and harder.  I know in most of the buildings I've been in there is almost always at least one well used sock aid or that wrist weight that the Velcro is so frayed it barely sticks together. Many reasons probably factor into the reasons why new equipment cannot be purchased, or worn out equipment not replaced, but ...

As a sidenote, I'm going to begin referring to Aisling as simply "A." in my posts. At some point, I will retroactively go through the old entries and edit out her name -- just because the more I think about the possibility of her schoolmates looking her up on the Internet, the more worried I get that I'm violating her privacy somehow. I hope that doesn't create too much confusion!

It's been a rather difficult ...

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When you work with toddlers the subject of toilet training will eventually come up.  "How can I get my child to start using the toilet" is the most frequent question asked.  In today's world where disposable diapers rule this can be a daunting task.  Disposable diapers are made so well that the child wearing it will rarely feel the discomfort of being wet.  How can you teach a child to use the ...

I was looking at the ADVANCE for OT Facebook page and noticed that there were a few interested students looking to start pre-requisites and inquiring about possible OT programs/schools where they should apply.  ...

On my mom's first day of OT at "Restive Acres", I walked with OT1 and mom down to the therapy room. I described my mom's life up to and including the evening she went to the ER:

• Lives independently in a 1-bedroom apartment
• Apartment is in a senior community that has assisted living services available as needed.
• Scheduled van service to a variety of locations is included ...

My apologies for the delay in getting this entry up and out there. Thursday afternoon, I found myself extremely under the weather, and I'm just beginning to get my bearings again. That being said, I'm still not up to 100% capacity, so this may be a bit shorter of an entry than usual.

Aisling continues to do much better, even though she occasionally gets sassy and moody. She lost another tooth, and I noticed ...

First and foremost, I think it is important to express how incredibly excited I am to be able to share my life as an OT Student with the readers of OT Advance! For this first entry, I would like to share my vision of this blog. Idyllically, I would love to collect requests of readers past so that we can make this an uber-interactive place for OT students to come and share ideas, thoughts, questions and experiences.  ...

Throughout the years I've worked mostly in skilled nursing facilities (SNF's). One thing that I have found from working in nursing homes is the similar pattern of the patient level of care. In most places I find the residents are either Independent to dress/bathe or they are Dependent.

            What I'm talking about is the hectic time schedule ...

In addition to a full line of in-person job fairs, did you know that ADVANCE also offers virtual job fairs? They start next week, and the eastern ...

With a new year upon us and with many of us having had to renew our licenses and/or certifications I thought it might be a good idea to share a list of classes in the area of feeding & oral motor to help with our CEU requirements.  In the coming weeks and months I will share classes in other areas as well (sensory, NDT, behavioral, etc).  I know that feeding and oral motor is an area of interest and ...

Aisling has held onto her good mood for the past several days, and it strikes me as interesting that I should think this is such a drastic change from her behavior right before the holidays. If they are doing anything different with her at school, it's such a subtle change that neither myself nor Aisling seems to notice. At home, I've simply tried to be more mindful in my interactions with her. I try to focus more ...

In September, 2009, I described my approach to providing OT to residents of long-term-care (LTC) facilities. My mom and I found out that "graduating" from a sub-acute rehab. unit of LTC is no less challenging. It didn't help that the OT ...