Virtual Reality in Occupational Therapy

By Jonathan E. Urrely, OT-S and Carlos Martoral

Joint effort with the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) and the Department of Elder affairs in a home modification program.

Eligible providers will have 60 days to complete the application for funding. Providers must apply by February 14, 2022.

FOTA21 Conference: Student Poster Submissions

Here are some tips to follow when completing your student poster submission:

1. First and foremost, make sure you submit your poster under student and not professional. This will help to decrease any added stress closer to conference when you realize you may have been placed in the wrong group. The conference committee goes off what you submit and will place your poster in the group accordingly.

Occupational Therapy Practitioners as Leaders

An others-oriented perspective is at the core of most occupational therapy practitioners. Occupational therapy (OT) is a holistic profession built on the ideals of being client centered and helping others live a life they deserve and value, which I believe is the reason many of us fell in love with the profession. Occupational therapists bring a unique, client-focused, occupation based, and holistic perspective to the table. With this viewpoint, we are given a responsibility to employ it in leadership, as it is increasingly valuable to healthcare as a whole.

By: Gustavo Reinoso, Ph.D., OTR/L Dominique Kiefer-Blanche, OTD, OTR/L Erna I. Blanche, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA 

As our understanding of sensory integration and the processing construct evolves, so should our measures and assessments. Occupational therapists working with children who present deficits in sensory integration and processing use an array of measures in clinical practice, such as standardized testing, proxy questionnaires, family interviews, biographical accounts, and self-report measures. The information provided by these measures assist practitioners in composing a clinical profile, formulate hypotheses, and develop a plan of care relevant to these children’s lives and their families. The results from these measures are often combined with the use of clinical observations. The primary purpose of clinical observations is to allow the therapist to use clinical judgment to analyze a child’s performance in relationship to sensory processing as informed by evolving theory and research (Blanche & Reinoso, 2008).

INTEGRATING HEALTH LITERACY IN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

The Florida Occupational Therapy Association (FOTA) is proud to continue its service to members and consumers of OT during the 2021 Florida Legislative Session.  Thus far we have spoken to at least eight different legislators directly involved in the examination and vetting of our proposed updates to the Occupational Therapy Scope of Practice (Scope). Your FOTA representatives have also met with other relevant stakeholders such as The Florida Board of OT and the Florida Department of Health to solicit feedback and support of these essential updates to our Scope.

Now it’s your turn!

Hello,

Just a reminder that there is now a requirement for a Human Trafficking CE

CHILDREN AND COVID-19

by: Kimberly McKinney MOT, MPT, tDPT, PHC
FOTA SIS Early Intervention/School Systems Chair H2 Health at Georgia-Pacific Palatka

The news about the coronavirus is everywhere, but what effect is it having on kids? According to a new study from China’s Shenzhen province (led by scientists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention) believes that although children do contract COVID-19 they do not get sick as quickly as adults. This is believed to be due to children having healthier lungs (from not smoking or fewer years of exposure to pollution) (Pappas, 2020).

MAKE YOUR COVID-19 COMMUNICATIONS TO STAFF MORE EFFECTIVE 

By: Michael Steinhauer OTR, MPH, FAOTA
FOTA SIS Administration & Management Chair (Modified from Matt Cornner, Managing Director, Talent Development Solutions, Advisory.com)

Social Disengagement and Isolation During a Global Pandemic: Occupational Therapy Strategies for You and Your Client 

by: Anjali K. Parti, OTD, OTR/L
Mental Health Special Interest Section FOTA

As you are all aware, the United States along with the global community is experiencing a period of social isolation, disengagement, social distancing, heightened public health precautions, and an overall sense of change in ‘normal’ due to a novel strain of the Coronavirus, COVID-19. Several countries are experiencing new social realities and limitations in order to prevent retrieving or spreading the virus. All Americans are encouraged to self-quarantine and limit exposure to gatherings or environments of a quantity of 10 or less people and implement 6-foot distance between one another. In short, Americans are discouraged from leaving their homes if possible. This is a significant societal shift which can yield many challenges to routine, personal and professional growth, emotional regulation, wellness, mental health, coping strategies stemming from a general feeling of ‘cabin fever’.

Manualization of Occupational Therapy Interventions: A Crucial but Overlooked Step in Building Evidence

Manualization of an intervention is an essential component in the implementation of research studies. When collaborating on research teams, manualization gives a template to check for fidelity and thus determine if the intervention is carried out in the way in which it was intended by the program developers. Murphy and Gutman (2012) have outlined essential elements in intervention fidelity that are often absent from study descriptions. For example, within the intervention manual researchers should describe the intervention design to include the number, length, and frequency of intervention sessions. The researchers should explain both the theoretical framework and any clinical guidelines that provided the foundation for the intervention. The manual must also define the “active ingredients” or elements of the intervention proven to be responsible for changes in specific outcomes, often quite complex in intervention research. Careful consideration must be given to the training of individuals who will be implementing the study’s procedures. Implementation training is not only outlined in the manual, but the manual content can also be used for training purposes. Written/electronic intervention manuals can be an important tool to assist in fidelity as they provide a means to articulate the distinct differences of the intervention and ensure outcomes are replicated.

COVID-19 AND THE IMPACT ON OT AND OTA FIELDWORK 

By: Kim Dudzinsk MS, OTR/L & Angela Sampson OTR/L

PANDEMIC, SOCIAL INJUSTICE, COPING AND HOPE Living through Layers of Pandemic and Social Injustice: C ontextualized through Voices of Coping and Hope, Part I

 By:

The Metamorphosis of Identity through the Chrysalis of Fieldwork Education

By: Becky Piazza, OTD, MS, OTR/L, BCPR FLOTEC Academic Fieldwork Coordinator University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences [email protected]

I was recently inspired by Stephen Covey’s internationally acclaimed book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey, 2004). In it he states, “Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground and there’s no greater investment” (Covey, 2004, p. 70). This reminded me of the term reflective practitioner (Adam, Peters, & Chipchase, 2013; Bannigan, & Moores, 2009; Knightbridge, 2019; O’Reilly, & Milner, 2015; Parham, 1984), and the process of self-discovery that educators hope will occur during their OT and OTA students’ level II fieldwork journeys. Self-awareness, self-discovery, and the process of self-reflection are key tenants in identity creation, which in this context, is a level II fieldwork student’s ability to establish a clinical identity as an entry-level prepared practitioner. Quality fieldwork educators are key in this identity transformation from student to occupational therapy practitioner. The maturation process that culminates in successfully passing fieldwork, thus allowing graduation, is only the beginning of the self-growth journey that has just begun for these new practitioners. As fieldwork educators, awareness of our own self-growth equips us to mentor these future colleagues and model compassionate and effective service delivery. Our ability to reflect on our clinical competencies and the identity transformations that continually occur throughout our careers and lived experiences empower our distinct value as occupational therapists. It elevates and inspires human potential within us, our clients, our colleagues, and our students. Allow me to reflect on a recent self-growth journey of my own. This year I chose to say yes to a professional opportunity that required significant self-awareness, self-reflection, and proactivity towards my career as an occupational therapy practitioner; a valued role that I take great pride in, and one that significantly contributes to my self-efficacy and sense of purpose. I said yes to academia after more than 17 years in adult inpatient rehabilitation – an area of clinical practice that will forever remain my first love. This one “big” decision, of saying yes to a new job as an Academic Fieldwork Coordinator (AFWC), was much more than a singular decision made in a one-dimensional context. It required countless smaller, yet just as “big” decisions, whose consequences affected multiple individuals, systems, processes, and relationships across a myriad of environments, both personal and professional. My decision could not be made without an awareness of the occupational disruptions that my self-perceived “big” decision would surely cause in my colleagues’ lived work experiences, as well as in their perceptions of me as their boss. It was a decision that required months of continual assessment, reassessment, reflection, and consideration of my valued roles, habits, routines, goals, co-occupations, relationships, and performance abilities. Ultimately it was a decision that challenged my occupational therapy identity (Laliberte-Rudman, 2002; Laliberte-Rudman & Dennhardt, 2008). The infrastructure of my identity consisted of my many roles: occupational therapist, rehab therapist, neuro therapist, treating clinician, fieldwork educator, student coordinator, clinical education coordinator, supervisor, electronic medical records super-user, colleague, friend, mentor, etc. My occupational participation and performance across these roles, and my ability to meet the activity demands of the many occupations that made up each role, were optimized over time through a process of continuing competency development, life-long learning, and reflective practice. My confidence and competence were symbiotic in these complex, interwoven roles. The more I participated in these roles, the more my clinical occupational identity solidified. These experiences, and the confidence and competence that came from them, afforded me the opportunity to have a “big” decision to make in the first place, however, the juxtaposition of this optimized occupational performance is that it made me doubt my ability to be as effective in a novel role within a new environment, where my identity was less established and secure. Hence, my occupational identity transformation and reconstruction journey began, 18 years after the initial establishment of my clinical identity on level II fieldwork. The truth is, it has been a continual evolution since the day I transitioned from the halls of didactic coursework into the hospital rooms of level II fieldwork, and beyond into clinical practice once I earned those beautiful letters behind my name: OTR/L. I share this to convey that many clinicians go through a similar occupational identity transformation when they consider leaping into what they consider to be the unknown realm of Fieldwork Educator (FWE).

TREATING ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN THROUGH 36 YEARS OF PRACTICE: EMBRACING CHALLENGES, ENHANCING LIVES 2020

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

These are unprecedented times that we are living in, as we continue to face a pandemic and social injustices that are pervasive throughout society. As an association, FOTA is here to support our profession by reaching out to occupational therapy practitioners and the community to meet their needs. There have been various meetings, sessions, resources, and initiatives orchestrated by the team of volunteers and our lobbyists to keep everyone abreast of changes and equip you with the tools to navigate these times.

FOTA has been leveraging technology, relationships, and other partnerships to keep everyone connected and equipped with support and information. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, we have provided resources, activities, and opportunities for practitioners to come together while staying safe and informed. During the month of April in celebration of our profession, FOTA Connect was launched to provide a way for practitioners to communicate, network, and be informed on practice issues. We held 5 consecutive weeks of livestream sessions, with members receiving free continuing education, on the following topics: Telehealth, Entrepreneurship, Advocacy, Leadership, and Financial Planning. Additionally, in light of recent awareness brought to social injustices and racism, FOTA hosted a Listen, Learn, and Lead: Be the Change session, which was an intimate conversation attended by students and practitioners. We will continue to provide such opportunities as a member benefit and seek your assistance to volunteer, join in, and support such initiatives.