One of the awesome aspects of blogging is that it can provide first-hand information. It allows for current OTs to share knowledge and spread new ideas. One of the biggest lessons I have learned in college is that you cannot be the best you can be without others helping you. By sharing ideas and asking for help, you can be better at your job. As for consumers, blogging allows them to get a feel for what OT is and why it is so useful. Many people are unsure about what OT is, and these blogs can give them a better understanding. I chose to write about pediatric OT because that is the field I would like to one day go into as of right now. Blogs like mine would be helpful to concerned parents or guardians of children.

My favorite blog post was when I wrote about was the co-morbidities with hearing loss in children. I am currently taking sign language here at SLU, so I really enjoyed being able to tie our two classes together. If I had thought about it, I would have had hearing loss and Deaf culture be the main topic for my blog. My favorite part about blogging was being able to share my own thoughts on research that is relevant to my future career. Being able to search for research I enjoyed reading about made blogging much more enjoyable. My least favorite part was having to meet deadlines. Obviously, in a class setting deadlines are necessary, but if I were to have my own blog outside of school, deadlines would be stressful, especially if my blog was popular. If I were to continue blogging, I would research more about deafness and how OTs are involved with treatment. Maybe I will have a job in the future where I can use my ASL knowledge, and research from my blog would be useful.

Thanks so much!
-Emily

The past few weeks, our class has been working hard on our literature reviews. For our topic, my group chose to focus on constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) used in stroke patients. CIMT works by using straps or casts to reduce movement in the healthy area of the body so the patient is forced to use the weaken areas and strengthen them. We found that most OTs do not use this kind of therapy because it is not very well known. Most research shows that CIMT is very successful, but because OTs are not educated about it, it is not being utilized. According you to Ching-Yi and Chang, CIMT is  “one of the most empirically supported approaches to rehabilitation of the upper limbs after stroke” (2015). This particular source discussed how successful CIMT is in stroke patients and discussed how it could be used in the future. They suggest someday CIMT can be administered through technology and patients can use it in their home while communicating with a therapist over video or phone call. I think CIMT can change how OTs treat stroke patients and should be better incorporated into the OT education system.

Thanks!
Emily

Ching-Yi Wu, Ku-Chou Chang, Constraint-induced movement therapy translated into practice, The Lancet Neurology, Volume 14, Issue 9, September 2015, Pages 869-871, ISSN 1474-4422, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00183-0.

Hello and welcome! This week I will be reviewing a couple other blogs about occupational therapy, including "Monica's OT Blog" by Monica Lee and "Blank's Blog" by Serena Blank.

In Monica's blog, she writes about the use of occupational therapy with children with special needs. She loves working with children, having started by volunteering at a local church, and hopes to continue this into her future career. In her most recent post, she talks about "cognitive functional" occupational therapy, also referred to as "Cog-Fun." This is mainly used with children with ADHD. The study Monica wrote about showed that Cog-Fun was a very successful type of therapy, and was taught to parents so they could help their own children at home. Monica writes, Based on the children's TOLDX scores, which were taken before and after the intervention, the Cog-Fun program showed significant improvement in the children." I am glad to see such a success that will improve the lives of children with ADHD. Check out her blog at http://monicasotblog.blogspot.com/!

Serena's blog is about OT and handwriting. I find this incredibly interesting because this is a topic I have never seen before, but has a ton of potential and is very important. Serena says, "I have noticed that young people have lost their chance of learning the craft of handwriting, due to a shift towards a technology-based society." This is something I never thought about before and I am glad Serena is writing about it. In her mist recent post, she discusses an article about handwriting in preschool-aged children. It talks about the "Handwriting Without Tears" test or HWT. This is when a child traces over the writing of the teacher with various writing tools to learn the fine motor skills. This was shown to be very successful! It is important to Serena that children are taught proper handwriting skills from a young age, and this should be important to teachers everywhere. Her blog ishttp://serenablank.blogspot.com/! Check it out!

I am thankful to have learned so much from these two blogs!
-Emily 

Lee, M. (2015, October). Success with Cognitive-Functional Occupational Therapy [Web log post].http://monicasotblog.blogspot.com/

Blank, S. (2015, October). Occupational Therapy Interventions and Handwriting [Web log post]http://serenablank.blogspot.com/

For this week's post, I would like to talk about hearing loss in pediatrics and what occupational therapy does to help. Here at SLU I am currently taking sign language, so I felt this would be an appropriate topic. This particular article by Varsha Sewpersad focuses on preschool-aged children in South Africa, but many of her ideas are applicable to children everywhere. Sewpersad discusses "co-morbidities" along with hearing loss in children, which means there are other health-related issues that come along with loss of hearing. Among these co-morbidities are motor impairment, learning disabilities, global development delay, sensory integration impairment, communication disorders, and other issues as well. Of all the children studied by Sewpersad, 63% of those with hearing loss also had other health issues. She believes many of these issues are caused from "auditory deprivation," and this leads to development that is not typical.

I thought this was an excellent article and I enjoyed reading it. While my topic, pediatrics, is broad, this was an interesting way of looking at a particular aspect of it. I think learning about hearing loss and deafness is very interesting, and I am especially interested since taking ASL here at SLU. This article has me thinking more about how to relate my new ASL skills to my future career of being an occupational therapist. I can't wait to learn more about this subject and apply it to my life!



Sewpersad, V. (2014). Co-morbidities of Hearing Loss and Occupational Therapy in Preschool Children.South African Journal Of Occupational Therapy, 44(2), 28-32 5p.

I have chosen to blog about pediatrics and occupational therapy. While this may be a broad topic, I wanted to write about this because this is the area of OT that I want to go into when I graduate. I have always loved working with kids and I love the idea of making their lives better. I have been playing volleyball since I was 11, and recently I have taken up coaching. Last year I worked with 14 year olds, and this coming season I am coaching 12 year olds. I love working with them and teaching them, and seeing them grow and improve is very rewarding. Maybe someday I can even use volleyball while working in OT. Tonya is a pediatric OT that uses seated volleyball to improve balance and endurance in kids. Volleyball requires coordination and dexterity, which makes it a perfect exercise for kids working on those skills. Also, by using a balloon, this minimizes risk for any injury and makes the sport accessible to anyone. I hope to learn about connecting with others with similar interests through blogging and improving my professional writing!

Reference: therapyfunzone.net/blog/seated-balloon-volleyball/