HP becomes an OT

Today we had the privilege of having Jennifer Valli, a certified sex therapist, come speak to our class about Aging & Sexual Health: Intimacy over a lifetime. Seeing as sexual activity is an activity of daily living, it is within the scope of occupational therapy's practice. This lecture was beneficial to us because it will increase our comfort level and confidence when discussing/addressing the variety of concerns our clients may come to us with regarding their sexuality. A major take away from the lecture is that the model of sexuality differs between men and women. The Tri-phasic Sexual Model includes desire (thoughts & fantasy), arousal (blood flow), and orgasm (contraction). Men's Tri-phasic Sexual Model will most likely this: Desire → Arousal → Orgasm  Whereas for women who are older or have been in a long term relationship (greater than 2 years), their sexual response is more likely to look like this: Neutral feeling & cognitive thought → Arousal

I found the guest lecture on driving and adaptive vehicles to be very informative. The biggest takeaway for me was the freedom driving can bring to someone who has had limited community mobility. While on the other hand, some individuals are driving when they should not be, which endangers other community members. The guest lecturer emphasized the importance of keeping the roads safe by recommending individuals who do not have the proper skill set (vision, attention, cognition, etc) get a medical hold on their license. I have had the pleasure of driving an adapted van before which allowed a pre-teen girl to participate in social gatherings which she had previously been limited by. The van allowed for her to go up a ramp on the side door and lock her wheelchair into the middle seat area with a row of seats behind her free for friends! For example, I drove her to go bowling with 3 of her best friends, and it was evident that this social participation meant a lot to her. Finally, it i

The drawings above are the results of a glyph drawing exercise "A Self-Portrait of a Leader," in which I followed prompts about the face shape, eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, nose shape, skin and so on as they correlated to leadership qualities. The picture on the left was completed in my first semester of OT school and the picture on the right was just completed in my last semester of courses in OT school. The first noticeable difference between my drawings is the face shape: square head = leadership stems from nurture over nature, triangle head = leadership is an inborn trait. I am not surprised that this quality changed between pictures because I believe that leadership stems from a pretty even balance of nature and nurture, so I am glad it is represented in both! The second difference is that my first picture has eyelashes and the second does not. This simply means that I could not recall 5 of the themes from the Flifton StrengthsFinder assessment and need to freshen up

What were the key takeaway points from the guest lecture today? Describe two occupational therapy interventions based on the topic. Each intervention should address a different type of client: individual, group, or population.   Today our guest lecturer shared with us the importance of nutrition and exercise in the aging process and healing the body from injury/illness. My biggest take-away from this lecture is the importance of early intervention with nutrition, especially in acute care hospital stays. This is an area that is currently lacking because dietitians sometimes don’t even get to see a patient until the 4 th  day of their stay, and by this time the client has already lost a significant amount of their muscle mass. She explained that nutrition must be as much of a priority for patients as therapy and medication is. This entails consultations upon admission and plans for discharge. If proper nutrition is not addressed, the patient’s medication and therapy will not have

In no particular order, I have provided some podcasts, videos, articles, and social media accounts for learning more about people and conditions with which occupational therapists may work! I chose to make this list for my final Neuro Note because I couldn't pick just one condition or one individual to share- there are so many interesting resources! Enjoy 1) Getting Curios with Jonathan Van Ness Podcast, Episode: What Are Strokes? with Dr. Lina Nih Description: Jonathan Van Ness is a hairdresser, podcast host, and TV personality who stars in "Queer Eye" an amazing make over documentary series on Netflix. On his podcast, Jonathan has quests for 30 minutes each week to answer questions that he is curious about. The episodes range from " What's Going on in the Middle East Right Now?" to " How Can We Be Less Rude to Bees?". In the episode "What Are Strokes ?" Dr. Lina Nih discusses her research as a Post Doc at UCLA in which she studies