Occupational Therapy Activities

186 Pages·014.534 MB·186\186

Occupational
Therapy
Activities for Practice
and Teaching
ESTELLE B. BREINES, PHD, OTR, FAOTA
Seton Hall University, New Jersey
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WHURR PUBLISHERS
LONDON AND PHILADELPHIA
© 2004 Whurr Publishers Ltd
First published 2004 by
Whurr Publishers Ltd
19b Compton Terrace, London Nt 2UN, England
325 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PAl9106, USA
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British Ubrary Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
ISBN 1 861563930
Contents
Foreword ix
~e&ce ~
What goes round comes round xiv
1 Introduction 1
Understanding 'occupation' as the founders did 4
Rabbi Emil Gustave Hirsch: ethical philosopher and founding figure 8
of occupational therapy
Pragmatism as a foundation for occupational therapy curricula 12
2 1b.inking Deep Thoughts 18
Occupational genesis: how activity, individual connect 19
What do you know about spatial orientation? 21
The end of occupational therapy? We have a choice 22
Never mind who we are - what do we do? 24
It's what you don't have to think about that counts 26
The thinker and the sower 28
Consider cultural influences when teaching patients activities 29
of daily living
The origin of adaptation 31
We need to talk the talk 33
Genesis of occupation: a philosophical model for therapy and theory 34
3 The Magic of Healing 42
Engaging the mind to help the body overcome illness 43
Students are amazed to see the arts at work in the clinic 45
In times of bereavement 46
Don't overlook some handcrafts for your rheumatoid patients 48
v
vi Occupational Therapy Activities for Practice and Teaching
How activity affects your patient's recovery process 49
A patient loves to do the teaching 51
A hard look at reality 53
Don't 'learn' occupational therapy from unfriendly systems 55
4 Old Crafts - New Ideas 58
If you haven't got any steel, try using some papier mache 59
Chasing Belgian lace 61
If Martha has them doing crafts. . . 63
Paint can be all-purpose medium in the occupational therapy clinic 65
With knitting, you can be teacher or student 66
Buying craft supplies tells something about the users 68
Quick! Find the knitting needles! 69
Crafts were the basis of the trades we still practice 71
An attempt to define purposeful activity 72
5 Toys and Games 76
That perfect task may be in the cards 77
Cards are well-suited to therapy goals 78
It's all in the cards 80
How about getting all 'dolled' up? 81
The 'puzzle' behind the fun and fascination of activities 83
6 Saving the Environment 85
Hey, don't throwaway all those six-pack rings yet! 86
No budget: what do we do now? 87
The case for recycling 'stuff' 89
Putting out the challenge to find what's cost effective 90
7 Home, Garden and Beyond 93
Culture cooking makes for great occupational therapy 94
Fall: it's finally in the air 96
Water, water, everywhere, so have some fun 97
There's no end to what you can do with summer plants 98
Planting the seeds of accessible activity 100
There's lots of things to do 'lookin' out my back door' 101
Considering public education and the kitchen cabinet 102
Bread: it can be the staff of your staff's life in the clinic 104
Contents vii
The key to self-worth may be right at your fingertips 106
If you play with your food, do it right 108
Isaac S. Friedman: guest author
Yes, Virginia, there is activity-based occupational therapy 109
The therapy that's in your office 111
Water sport in retirement 113
Did you ever want to be a '90s Johnny Appleseed? 114
8 Pets and People 117
Try some activities with man's best friend 118
Are pets the therapy tool your practice is missing? 119
9 Occupational Technology and Occupational Therapy 122
Occupational technology, past, present and future 124
Estelle B. Breines, Tamara Avi-Itzhak, Meryl M. Picard and
Elizabeth Tordvia
The new art of videography 129
Chasing the perfect button 131
CSU's creative links to human health 132
What could you do in the clinic with a 'peace' of paper? 133
10 Teaching and LearnJng through Activity 136
Students' appreciation of crafts is not universal 137
Will occupational therapists who use crafts please stand 138
Learning to value active occupation 140
Where have all the trained occupational therapists gone? 141
Writing and teaching about activity 143
Moving into the occupation mode 145
Where do we go from here? 146
Media education based on the philosophy of pragmatism 148
Occupational therapy education in a technological world 154
Notes 159
References 160
Index 167

Forew-ord
The profession of occupational therapy is less than a hundred years old, if a
meeting in Clifton Springs, in the USA, is seen as the beginning, yet it is
expanding and flourishing all over the world. In 1917, a small group of
interested people met at Clifton Springs to found the National Society for
the Promotion of Occupational Therapy. Today, the World Federation of
Occupational Therapists has fifty-seven member countries and the number
is rising steadily.
If success can be measured in terms of growth and expansion, then
occupational therapy is a successful profession. This is surely due to the
pragmatic value of a professional group whose main concern is to promote
and maintain people's ability to function effectively in the world. What
could be more useful?
And yet, occupational therapists sometimes appear to doubt our own
worth. Perhaps this is because we work in areas of life that everyone takes
for granted until something goes wrong. When Mrs Smith wants to regain
her ability to get dressed after a stroke, she needs an occupational therapist.
When Mr Brown returns to work after an acute psychotic episode, he may
depend on the support of an occupational therapist. However, getting
dressed and going to work are ordinary, everyday activities. Not everyone is
able to recognise the skills that go into performing these activities and that
are required for teaching or maintaining them
The skills of the occupational therapist, although crucial to those clients
who receive occupational therapy, are mostly invisible to the rest of the
world. Occupational therapists are not invited to address the important
health issues of the day on national radio. Our interventions do not make
great television drama. Some therapists find it difficult to sustain a
commitment to working with activity in the face of the puzzlement or
indifference of their colleagues.
ix
x Occupational Therapy Activities for Practice and Teaching
What the occupational therapist does looks so simple that the observer
might think it is just based on common sense. But this practical approach to
addressing the ordinary activities of everyday life is underpinned by a
coherent philosophy of practice that is the envy of other professions. It is
also supported by an impressive body of theory that is being expanded and
refined all the time.
In the past, the occupational therapist's professional self-doubt has perhaps
been exacerbated by an incongruity between the grand theories that we have
tried to adapt to our practice and our focus on small gains with individual
clients. When everyone around us is using medical terminology, it can be
hard to take pride in talking about mundane matters such as cooking and
childcare. This situation is improving as we develop a specialised vocabulary
with which to articulate our concerns, our goals and our methods.
In this book, Estelle Breines has succeeded in capturing both the
importance of small gains and the complexity of our apparently simple
methods, in language that is appropriate to occupational therapy. She
describes her collection of meditations on the therapeutic use and value of
activity as 'often warm and fuzzy simple stories'. This phrase does not do
justice to the wealth of knowledge, understanding and experience that have
made it possible to write in such a way. For example, in describing activities
that might be appropriate for autumn (Fall: it's finally in the air) Estelle has
drawn on her understanding of activity analysis, cultural appropriateness,
individual motivation, activity sequencing, accessible environments, group
dynamics, risk management and occupational justice. This apparently
unsophisticated description of things to do in the autumn is based, like
occupational therapy itself, on complex, high level theories.
The book also incorporates some of Estelle's more overtly philosophical
and theoretical papers, reproduced with the permission of the original
publishers. These enable the reader to explore in more depth some of the
concepts that are touched on in the papers that describe aspects of practice.
For example, in the story of Elizabeth (Engaging the mind to help the body
overcome illness), Estelle describes how being able to carry out two small
activities independently made a major difference to the quality of life of a
lady living with severe pain and deformity. In the paper on Understanding
'occupation' as the founders did, she gives us a theoretical framework for
understanding how these small achievements could have such a great effect.
Occupational therapists are concerned with the modest, daily activities of
ordinary people but we should take care not to confuse modesty with
insignificance. For someone with a serious, long-term incapacity, small
achievements can be very significant. This important truth permeates the
writings in Estelle's book. All the papers have appeared in other publications