tutorial eight

Assistive Technology

Assistive can be defined in many ways as there are many forms of assistive technology. One definition would be that from Jensen (as cited in Pain, Mclellan and Gore,  2003, p.14) stating that “any product , instrument, strategy, service and practice, used by people with disabilities and older people – specially produced or generally available – to prevent, compensate, relieve or neutralise the impairment, disability or handicap, and improve the individual’s autonomy and quality of life”

My personal understanding of assistive technology is that it is any product or device which has been adapted or can be assistive to the user’s needs in the ways that they require.

One piece of assistive technology that I have had the pleasure of using is the Go Talk communication range. There are 3 types and sizes in the range, the Go Talk 4+, Go Talk 9+ and the Go Talk 20+. This range is an electronic communication device. These devices allow you to place in pictures in the provided spots and link them up with recorded sentences or descriptions for each picture through the built in microphone. The differences between the range is that the number represents the number of picture slots that device has.

This form of adaptive technology provides an interactive way for clients to learn to pronounce words and make links between sounds and imagery. It can also be used as a form of communication for those with loss of speech or speech impairments. This was one device I used when working alongside OT’s and speech language therapist who were working with clients with dyspraxia.

The cost of these devices range between $260 and $490, the cost is dependent on the size/ model that you buy. They are not very heavy, weighing around 700 grams, model dependent.

Relationship with Occupation

 This assistive technology could be linked with occupational transition. The process of children transitioning through education levels is one example of where this device may become a crucial learning aid improving the transition through the levels of education as it is a device which can be made very interactive. Secondly this deceive can be used as a communication aid. By recording sentences that may be basic answers or questions for a person who has suffered from some form of speech impairment it means that they can use this device to communicate with those around them. This may help them transition more easily if they have lost a previous ability to talk/communicate by providing a new way of communication that is easy for them to use and doesn’t use a lot of energy. Another area that this device may be use is with clients who have dementia. The picture slots may be filled with family members or important friends with recordings of who they are and how they relate to the person making the device like a talking photo album reminder for that person. This may help to ease or slow the transitions when the onset of dementia begins.

Links:

tutorial seven

Tutorial Seven

This post is all about some of the blogs that I have linked into and found very interesting.

Paediatric blog: This blog is one that is being actively posted on by an Occupational therapist. Some of the post that drew in my interest was the blogs discussing hand function rehabilitation. I have a younger brother who has high tone in his hand and reading about these exercises allowed me to relate some of the information back to my brothers’ case.

Diana’s Blog: This blog is a fellow students blog and discusses similar material to what is on my own blog. The post of hers that I found very interesting to read about is her blog about assistive technology, The talking photo album. This sound like a wonderful piece of equipment that could be used with a number of clients’ whether it is a blind client that wants to keep a book of memories or a client with dementia that has a deteriorating condition and require reminders of how people in the album relate to them.

Recycling OT: This blog has a post regarding autistic children and has YouTube clips on it showing an amazing story of an autistic child. The clip provided a view of an autistic child from their own view and explains some of the stereotypes she has no control over. The OT creating this blog has links to the child’s blog and provides information and reviews on books that have been written about autism.

Occupational therapy for children: This blog consists of a range of post relating to development disorder that can be found in children. It provides the information that you require to know about each disorder and also information on how to work with children with these disorders.

OT Education: This blog is a blog that has been created to help OT’s and OT students stay connected and discover active blogs that are maintained by working OT’s and OT students. It links to blogs all around the world and provides a way to gain some incite of the profession.

Tutorial six

Tutorial Six

As a sibling who grow up around family with disabilities I have a clear understanding for the need for support from places where you can express your feelings and needs in a safe environment. Due to this I am basing this post on of the support groups and communities who provide services to families who are living with individuals who have disabilities or special needs and want help dealing with their feelings and the aspects of life that they are experiencing.

1.      http://www.familynetwork.org.nz/groups.html

2.      http://www.kidshealth.org.nz/index.php/pi_pageid/36

3.      http://www.kiwifamilies.co.nz/articles/parent-to-parent-new-zealand/

Family Network

This community is made up of various parents and family members that are living with a child or children who have a disability. Their aim is to provide support, information and advocacy for these families. The sites purpose is to help people become aware they are not alone, there are people going through similar experiences. The site is moderately interactive with links to contacts for joining a support groups and also links to a blog set up by the support groups. By having this link to a blog people have the options to comment on the information provided on the blog and also gain more information of what the support groups do. By joining this support group web page and blog or contacting them to become a part of a specific group, there becomes an opportunity to meet people who are having similar experiences to yourself, receive information on family outing and also helps to increase the personal support you require to manage your own life experience. People choose to be a part of this support group as they get the opportunity to feel that they are helping others while also helping themselves. As information can be shared on a blog the people who want to contribute have the option to.

Kids Health, Support groups A-Z:

 This is an interactive site that is run by an organisation who are linked in with StarShip hospital. The site links people into all and any abailible support groups for all sorts of conditions including head injury support groups, ADHD support groups and even support groups for those with arthritis. The site is very interactive and easy to navigate your way around. It provides access to support for family, friends and even the person that is having the experience and requires support.

Kiwi Families

This web site that provides information, support and advice to families that may need it. It is interactive as it links you in to other sites such as parent to parent which are a site for parents to communicate with each other. The site helps to link you in with families that are having similar experiences or have family members with similar conditions.

By joining the sites such as family network, Kids Health Support groups A-Z  and Kiwi Families can enable a people to ease into occupational transition. Making a transition from their prior life and occupations, to having a life that requires them to care for a child with a disability. It could also help to prevent occupational deprivation from occurring as when life has large changes made to it such as having a child with a disability some people cut themselves off, depriving themselves of any occupations they did prior to this child coming into their life. By receiving support from others that are experiencing similar things to themselves people may be able to develop new occupations and be involved in new occupations allowing them to replace the occupations they were being deprived of with similar or better occupations. Ethical issues that may be made could be that if an individual does not have an understanding of the site they are using they may end up posting personal information that they meant as a private conversation.

Overall each of these web pages along with many more help to link together people who are going through similar experiences and allows them to gain the support they need while going through any difficulties. Most people think people won’t understand if they haven’t experienced it and though these support groups people are provided with a way to communicate with those who do understand and that are feeling similar or the same as they are themselves.

Tutorial Five

Motor Planning

Motor planning is a skill which I had the privilege to learn about on my fieldwork one placement, working in a CDS paediatric team.

Motor planning or praxis is the ability of the brain to conceive, organize, and carry out a sequence of unfamiliar actions.

Therefore Motor Planning is a skill we all have that allows us to complete new tasks that we have not done before by watching the task be completed then copying it. In children motor planning can be effected by sensory integration disorders which can cause the child to have difficulty in all new tasks that they attempt in life. Due to this the child may appear to not be developing correctly as they are unable to learn new activities at the spend of a child that does not have sensory integration problems.

For a child who has minimal motor skills a new task, one which may seem so easy for us now that we have completed it numerous times, could be the most difficult task for them to master. You may be thinking that giving clear instructions to explain a task as you go would help overcome this problem. However then the child would no longer be using motor planning, they would have switched into using cognition which is a different skill to motor planning.

Motor planning can have an effect on every motor skill task that we do. Form walking, running, co-ordination of balls/ balloons and much much more.

Following this write there are five youtube clips. Each clip presents a range of motor skills that can be learnt or be effected by motor planning and motor skill development.


Clip One:
This clip explain how sensory information can effect a child's ability do develop motor skills. This is only one case, every case presents differently.





Clip two:
This short clip is of a child with difficulty with co-ordination which is effected by motor planing development. This shows how difficult a simple task of catching a ball can be.




Clip three:
This clip shows a child moving through an obstetrical course. This task requires motor planning to co-ordinate through the course and is a task that is very difficult to do if a child has motor planning problems



Clip four:
This clip is of an OT who works in paediatrics and discusses how he assess sensory development and its effects on children's development

Clip five:
this clip is of a group of children using motor planning skills to co-ordinate balloons and their play in the gym

Tutorial Four

Occupational Deprivation

The aim of this tutorial was to create a 1 minute film, as a small group, that focused on one of the following concepts:

1.Occupational justice

2. Occupational disruption

3. Occupational transition

4. Occupational deprivation

My group choose the concept Occupational deprivation. Occupational deprivation can be defined as "a state of prolonged preclusion from engagement in occupations of necessity or meaning, due to factors outside of an individuals control." C.H, Christiansen & E.A, Townsend.

To get the concept of occupational deprivation across to our viewers we chose to focus on the environments in our society and how the simplest things are depriving wheelchair bond individuals from taking part in a range of occupations. things as simple as putting ramps in where there are steps and creating doors that are easy to manoeuvre wheelchairs through independently can remove this occupational deprivation.

Tutorial Three

Creating a blog and blogger account:
This blog has been created as required for my OT course.

Tutorial Two:

Pio ppt 1

View more PowerPoint from ekhands

Tutorial Two

Progression of hand writing-

As an OT student I attend a range of fieldwork placements around the country. One of my placements was a paediatric placement which I help run a weekly hand writing session in a primary school. The children were very reluctant to take part as to them hand writing seemed pointless because the introduction of computers meant everything was typed. This made me reflect on how handwriting was certainly becoming a dying occupation. However it is not only an occupation taught in schools to help improve fine motor control it also requires us to look at the core strength and stability necessary to sit in a chair. This is an aspect of hand writing, computer skills and many everyday activities. Due to this I have created a slide show on the progression of handwriting to typing including the aspects of core stability.

The following defines the concepts do, being, become, belong.

Do or doing: doing can be described as “the emphasis of knowing and doing as a focal concern.” (G.D, Rowles). It is a “concept that includes purposeful, goal-orientated activities.”(Hammell, 1998). In terms of the slideshow handwriting is shown as a purposeful and goal-oriented occupation, this therefore shows doing. This can be seen in almost all slides. For example in slides two and eight.

Being: being is defined as “time taken to reflect, be introspective or meditative and re-discover self.” (Hammell,1998). In turn this links to self actualisation and finding a meaningful appreciation. The slides reflect being through the use of achievement. Such as is slide nine when the students are being all they can be through their skills of handwriting.

Becoming:  Becoming describes the “ideas that people envision of future selves” and “explore new opportunities. (Hammel,1998a ;2003a. In terms of the slide show it is through becoming that we are able to explore the new technology of typing over the skill of handwriting. It is a skill that has become an aspect of everyday and has certainly progressed from the basic means of typing shown in slide twelve (a typewriter).

Belonging: The term belonging refers to “the contribution of social interaction”... “And the sense of being included, to occupational performance and life satisfaction.” (Duggan & Dijkers, 1999). We can link the skill of handwriting to having a sense of belong as it is through handwriting that skill of letter writing came about. We were able to feel as if we were a part of something, whether it be a family or a business as we received or past on letters. In today’s society we type letters in email format and pass them on with the click of a button over the internet. Letter writing and emails are both shown in slides seven and seventeen.

Ethical considerations you made:

1. For my slideshow, as I was using images, to attend to any ethical concerns i have provided a link under each picture that I took from the internet. These links show where the original image was obtained.

2. In regards to the images that i have taken myself, of other people (e.g. slide 5), I obtained both verbal and written consent. By doing so I have evidence of the given consent if i am required to present it at any given time.

3. Lastly I have provided a reference list for all viewers to refer to that states what slide an image is on and where that image was attained.

Tutorial One:

Tutorial One

For week one of our PIO studies we began looking at both information technology and communication technology. This required us to look into the society’s interactions with technology and how technology was being accepted in society.

What is Information and communication technology?

Information technology is “the development, implementation and maintenance of computer hardware and software systems to organize and communicate information electronically.” In turn ‘Information communication technology encompasses areas such as telephony, broadcast, media and all types of audio and video processing and transmission.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/information+and+communication+technology

In other words information and communication technology can be defined in many ways due to it being a very broad topic. It can include all forms of computer and internet technologies and also incorporate the use of cell phones, radios, iPods,  television and all the social networking site that many of us use on a daily basis.

The reading “mainstream Technology as an occupational therapy tool: Technophobe of technogeek?” written by M.C, Vendonck and S, Ryan focuses on the introduction of mainstream technology can be useful to improve both functional independence and occupational performance in everyday interventions.

Information and communication technology are both growing aspects in today’s society. We spend more than half our lives engaged in occupations related to the internet, including study, research, shopping, socialising (e.g  facebook, blogs, skype, etc.) and business.  All these occupations involve the basic state of communication where there is a sender and a receiver. This loop of sending and receiving creates a sense of purpose and has been greatly enhanced through the use of information and communication technologies.

Technology is an aspect of society that is constantly changing. We learn to use one form of technology then the next new latest and greatest technology is released. Currently I feel  comfortable using a range of technologies for example my laptop. My laptop is an Acer laptop. I have had it for a year and know most of the ins and outs of how to use it. These are skills I have learnt through using it ever day to increase my knowledge on the occupational therapy course. However if I have to use an apple computer such as my sisters laptop, I have not got a clue on where to start. Personally I believe that whether you are a technophobe or a technogeek, everybody has limitations with technology use; it’s just a matter of practise and sticking with what works for you because no matter how hard you try to keep up with the new technology being released there will always be the next big thing coming out.

Within occupational therapy it is important to have an understanding of the technology out there as we live in a techno world so there is going to be forms of technology out there that will suit a range of different clients. For example on one of my field work placement I worked with a child with dyspraxia. To try helping the child with speech therapy we used a talking story book. This let me record a story for individual pictures a in a story board so that as the child worked through a story they pressed the picture which would play a sentence that they could repeat back to help gain an understanding of how to pronounce words correctly. Another example is in a case where a young boy had extreme high tone in his left arm. He refused to allow anyone to touch his arm making it very difficult to exercise the arm. By introducing him to Nintendo Wii we were able to increase the movement/ function in his arm while making him think he was only playing games. In turn this decreased the high tone so that his hand has now uncoiled and he has increased from having 15% function to having 85% function.

In the case of the boy with high tone we had a small technical issue the sensor not registering to the Wii remote due to the way the boy had to hold the remote.  To redeem this we had to adjust where the sensors were.

In the future I believe that technology is going to become a massive impact on the tools of practice. We are already seeing this being adopted through the use of online communications. By having online communications the lines of communication between those in multi disciplinary teams and other physicians involved with an individual client can communicate a lot faster allowing the treatment plan to go ahead in minimal amounts of time.

Another reason that technology will impact is because society is becoming much more technologically structured, meaning that the amount of technology available and relied upon is only going to increase.

Having a understanding of technology is becoming important in the position as occupational therapist. This is due to the increase in the availability to technology in society. There is no longer a choice in whether you use it or not. If you want a job you need to have a basic understanding of the technology in the work place. Due to this fact occupational therapists need to have the ability to work alongside clients that are required to use technology and help them to adapt the required technology to suit their personal function, both physical and mental to help them achieve goals of participating in meaningful occupations (including employment.)

Yes technology is a growing aspect of society; however there are growing concerns for the ethical issues arising around using it in health fields. Without the correct protection on mobile phones and computer files there is a risk of client’s personal information being released into the wrong hands. This is why it is very important to gain consent when taking images and also having the correct knowledge about the technology you are using to transfer, save and report any information about a client’s case.

Introduction to my blog

This is an introduction to my first ever blog. I have created this blog as a portion of my PIO paper for my occupational therapy course