Looking beyond the immediate

When I graduated as an occupational therapist, I was told that my profession was “problem-solving” and “motivation”. At the time (early 1980’s) Lela Llorens‘ problem solving process was the fundamental approach taught during our training. This approach is straightforward: identify the problem, identify solutions, select a solution, implement the solution, and review. I’m not sure if this approach is still taught but it’s stayed with me (and those memories of painstakingly completing the problem solving process documentation…). There’s one small step that I think is either not fully articulated, or maybe gets lost in the iterative process of identifying solutions, implementing them and reviewing: and that’s the process of identifying contributors to the problem. Let me take you through a case study as an example. Luke is in his mid-20’s with widespread pain. He’s off work, and his diagnosis is “fibromyalgia”. It started when he hurt his back working on cars (he’s a true petrol-head!) about a year ago, and now his pain dominates his life as he finds his pain has permeated his body. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, and thinks that his pain is because someone didn’t “fix” him when he first hurt his back. The main thing he wants to be able to do is get back to driving and working on cars. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do, apart fro...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Assessment Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Pain Pain conditions Professional topics Uncategorized Source Type: blogs