An analysis of how small changes can potentially lead to unintended consequences in a motion
An analysis of the recent motion to update policy E.6 Entry Level Education is offered for consideration.Please refer to the following for background information:A Motion to Update Policy E.6 Entry-Level Education of Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Assistantsand alsoAOTA ' s claim to authority over entry level degree requirementsROADMAP FOR UNDERSTANDING THE ISSUE:To understand the problems with the wording changes you need to read and understand the first policy as it is written in the policy manual.  Then you have to read and understand the motion that was submitted to update.  Then you have to...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 8, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: policy Source Type: blogs

7 Simple Ways to Ease Anxiety
Anxiety serves a life-saving role when we are in real danger. Adrenaline pumps through our system, and suddenly we can run like Usain Bolt and lift a 200-pound man without much effort. However, most of the time, anxiety is like a fire alarm with a dead battery that beeps annoyingly every five minutes when there is absolutely nothing to worry about. We experience the heart palpitations, restlessness, panic, and nausea as if a saber-toothed tiger were 20 yards away. Thankfully there are a few simple gestures to communicate to your body that there is no immediate danger — that it’s a false alarm… yet again. I have u...
Source: World of Psychology - April 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Therese J. Borchard Tags: Anxiety and Panic Mental Health and Wellness Research Self-Help Anxious Thoughts Coping Skills Relaxation Source Type: blogs

What will happen to the Wilma West Library and archives of the occupational therapy profession?
During the last year, minutes from the Board meetings of the American Occupational Therapy Association indicate that there has been discussion on two matters that have an important impact on the Wilma West Library, home of the collected resources that catalog the history of occupational therapy.Around last year, discussion apparently started getting more specific related to sale of AOTA ' s current building.  In May 2018 the board authorized the (re)allocation of funds necessary to pay off the mortgage on the building and exploration of new sites for the organization ' s operations.  It is unclear if a new locati...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 26, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: history Source Type: blogs

Knowledge translation: A home for occupational therapy?
Modern occupational therapy is involved with helping people participate in daily life in the real world. Indeed, occupational therapy has always been about “doing” – see here for a brief history of occupational therapy – but it has been difficult, in a strongly reductionist and biomedical context, to articulate the unique and particular contribution occupational therapy makes within healthcare. In a conversation last week with Dr Mary Butler from Otago Polytechnic, we were discussing our areas of research. I mentioned that knowledge translation, or helping clinicians use research that is often l...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - March 24, 2019 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Occupational therapy Pain conditions Professional topics knowledge translation treatment Source Type: blogs

Degree escalation and doctoral education are sinking the occupational therapy profession
Occupational therapy started on a simple premise - that man, through the use of his hands as they are energized by mind and will, can influence the state of his own health.  That statement was provided to the profession by Mary Reilly, our greatest theoretician.It is a simple concept, borne out of a core philosophy of pragmatism and infused with a dose of all the good intentions of the moral treatment movement.  If you carefully read that core philosophy of occupational therapy you will hear the Emersonian reverberations of self-reliance: ' Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. '  That is ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 12, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

The primary driver for degree escalation in occupational therapy is to solve poor curriculum design of master's level programs
Perhaps the greatest point of misinformation that is routinely spread when academicians discuss the ' need ' for escalating the entry level degree to the doctoral level is that master ' s level OT programs can vary between 80 and 100 credit hours, depending on the school.  This is not a factual statement. There are some OT schools who are configured in a 4+1 or 3+2 model and the number of graduate credits is only around 30-40.  In these schools, the bulk of the occupational therapy curriculum is delivered at the undergraduate level.Throughout the conversation, I have heard educators and practitioners both at...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - February 28, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education policy Source Type: blogs

6 Reasons Why You Might Have to Put Someone with Dementia in a Memory Care Facility or Nursing Home
Every caregiver of a person living with Alzheimer's, Lewy Body dementia, Parkinson's or any other related dementia faces this gut wrenching question -Should I put my loved with dementia in a nursing home or memory care facility?By Bob DeMarcoAlzheimer's Reading RoomWe all face this gut wrenching decision. Most of us don't want to do it. But sometimes, it is the only decision, and only right decision.There are a long list of reasons why you might have to place your loved one in a nursing home or long term care memory facility.Topic -Dementia CareLet me start by making this clear -it is not your fault.It is not your fault th...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - February 27, 2019 Category: Neurology Tags: alzheimer's care facilities care of dementia patients caregiver dementia care elderly dementia care help alzheimer's help with dementia care how to care memory care facilities nursing home Source Type: blogs

Reconciling uncertainty and the drive to diagnose
Recently it was suggested to me that even though I’m an occupational therapist, I might “diagnose”. Not so much diagnose disease, but “determine if a patient is depressed, anxious, catastrophising, fear avoidant etc?” The author goes on to say “isn’t that diagnosis too?” The comment was made in the context of a lengthy Twitter discussion about so-called “non-specific” low back pain. Over the course of I think about five weeks now, a large number of highly educated, erudite and passionate clinicians have argued the toss about whether it’s possible to identify...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - February 17, 2019 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Back pain Clinical reasoning Interdisciplinary teams Low back pain Pain conditions Resilience Science in practice certainty collaboration diagnosis NSLBP uncertainty Source Type: blogs

The ongoing occupational therapy identity crisis: 2019 edition
What does it say about a group of professionals that can ' t agree on what titles to use to describe themselves?Several years ago I wrote a post entitled "Why students will be making elevator speeches to define occupational therapy for the next 100 years. "  The issue behind this is that some occupational therapists believe that the public does not recognize what the profession does and that it is important to have a handy 1 minute description.  The post describes the fact that the profession serially re-defines occupational therapy and that the constant tinkering with definitions contributes to the confusion.The...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - January 17, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice policy Source Type: blogs

A sad prediction that is coming true for occupational therapy assistants
Last year I wrote several blog posts about the devastating advocacy position taken by AOTA to remove the Medicare therapy caps that caused a ' paygo ' impact on services provided by occupational therapy assistants.In short, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 lifted the Medicare therapy caps and was ' paid for ' by an agreement that OTA services under Medicare Part B would have to be paid at 85% of the standard rate whenever that therapy was delivered in whole or in part by an OTA.Professional lobbyists and policy analysts at AOTA were surprised by this ' last minute ' inclusion of a payment differential even though the Hous...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - January 7, 2019 Category: Occupational Health Tags: health insurance OT practice Source Type: blogs

On the problem of coping
Coping. Lots of meanings, lots of negative connotations, used widely by health professionals, rejected by others (why would you need coping skills if you can get rid of your pain?). I’ll bet one of the problems with coping is that we don’t really know what we’re defining. Is coping the result of dealing with something? Or is it the process of dealing with something? Or is it the range of strategies used when dealing with something? What if, after having dealt with the ‘something’ that shook our world, the world doesn’t go back to the way it was? What if ‘coping’ becomes a...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - December 2, 2018 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: 'Pacing' or Quota Assessment Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Coping strategies Motivation Research Science in practice activity patterns flexibility Occupational therapy physiotherapy values Source Type: blogs

When leaders fail to lead.
Three years ago a controversial bylaws change was suggested for the American Occupational Therapy Association that granted the Board of Directors powers to revoke memberships based on complaint of other members and a finding of ' cause. ' This issue was fully discussed and documented in this blog at the time of the release of the proposal.As is the rule for all Bylaws changes, they need to be voted on by the membership, which happens at the subsequent Business Meeting.  That meeting happened in Chicago at the annual conference and is summarizedin these minutes with a synopsis of the specific issue at hand fo...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - November 11, 2018 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice policy Source Type: blogs

How a motion to affirm dual levels of entry for occupational therapy was killed by the leaders of the AOTA.
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGEIt is important for the occupational therapy profession to understand that there was close collaboration between the RA leadership and the AOTA Board of Directors leading up to the Fall meeting.  As such, the Board of Directors may have been able to shape and form the agenda and the response to motions long before they ever were formally discussed by the RA members. The reason why Motion One on dual entry was killed was by what appears to be coordinated table setting engaged in by the AOTA Board of Directors, facilitated by the RA Leadership team, and then followed by those RA members who bot...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - November 10, 2018 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs

Wandering back from the IASP World Congress
Meetings, meanderings, mind-expansions I’ve been away for abut 10 days, attending the World Congress of the International Association for the Study of Pain. It was a time of meetings with wonderful people I’ve met via the interwebs, with researchers and clinicians, and most importantly, with people living with pain. It was also a time for meanderings – around the very walkable city of Boston, embracing history and looking towards the future, and mind meanderings as well. And because it was a conference, it was also mind-expanding. New ideas, new ways of investigating this human experience of pain, ne...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - September 23, 2018 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Low back pain Chronic pain Research Occupational therapy Pain conditions Coping strategies Professional topics biopsychosocial pain management conference pain research Source Type: blogs

A Motion to Update Policy E.6 Entry-Level Education of Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Assistants
I am receiving email asking for assistance in drafting specific language for RA Motions related to the entry level educational mandates.  Here are my suggestions - please work with your RA representatives and each other to coordinate efforts.II. BODY OF MOTION:I move that the Representative Assembly revise Policy E.6 to read as follows: PURPOSE: To state the education required for entry into occupational therapy.  IT SHALL BE THE POLICY OF THE ASSOCIATION THAT:  1. The Association recommends and supports entry-level education at the associate and bachelor degree level for occupational therapy ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - September 15, 2018 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice policy Source Type: blogs