It is a truth universally acknowledged that all fledgling OTs really want in the world is to see their clients make progress. Knowing that you've been able to help someone make even the smallest amount of progress makes all the stress and sleepless nights worth it. So sure, you might've fallen asleep in class yesterday: but hey, today you got someone to do something independently for the first time in months. Well done you! Now, go get some sleep.
Noting progress that I've specifically contributed towards is really tricky at my fieldwork site, where the rehab team is so efficient resulting in clients improving by the day. Sometimes, I've questioned my own assessment findings- how can my client be walking on Monday when last week Wednesday he couldn't even stand?! I've seen rapid progress in every single one of my clients, which makes me very proud to be in this profession. However, I'm hesitant to take any credit for progress, as the rest of the MDT (multidisciplinary team) is just so fantastic at the work they do. I've definitely put my all into my interventions with clients, but always feel like I could be doing more. Nevertheless, during a session with a client of mine a few weeks ago I noted direct improvement from the beginning of the session to the end of the session in her ability to hip-hitch after working with me. Its certainly not miracle work, but I was chuffed.
Similarly, I've noticed how through my handling of clients and a change in communication techniques I'm able to get my clients to interact more with me. I've mostly been working with aphasic clients, so the chatter is usually one-sided, though I did notice that a recent client of mine with global aphasia who would normally not make too much eye-contact with me, began to turn to face me and displayed an increased variety of facial expressions to indicate responses to my speech. Small progress, but progress nonetheless. Progress with all of my aphasic clients has been wonderful to note. I've been sure to include components in my session where they can practice verbalizing and grade my use sentences so that there's increased complexity, forcing them to respond using hand signals and gestures. What is clear is that each member of the team is reinforcing work of the other members, in this way progress cannot be attributed to an individual member's work, but I am able to say that my actions lent themselves to some contribution to overall progress by reinforcing therapy. Once, I walked into the dining room and saw a nurse handing an assistive device I had made for feeding to my client, who then picked it up and scooped her cereal into her mouth independently. That was a very happy day for me.
Cooper (2019) found that measuring your progress can lead to an improved emotional state. As students, setting goals for our clients and having them achieve them is something that we can do at the outset of treatment, and whether we, or the team, contributes to the goal's success is immaterial as we can take emotional satisfaction from knowing that the goal is met. As we progress as professionals, we'll begin caring about progress in not only our patients, but the healthcare system too. I've learnt through this block, just how influential policies are to our functioning and how much behind-the-scenes action goes into therapy. Tas (2019) describes how the future of medicine is all about real-time work, communication and integration of resources to achieve successful treatment. As we've only just begun our journey, its exciting to think about how many more cases we'll get to be apart of and how many lives we can impact, whilst medicine continues to evolve around us.
I think that more progress could've been made quicker if I had attempted to integrate a few more areas of treatment into sessions. Often we go into a session with one main aim and a few secondary to keep our mindset clear of what we hope to achieve. With a few of the clients that I've had lately, I felt that perhaps my secondary aims were not impactful enough and that if I had put more thought into the session I could have had more secondary aims that were of significant benefit. An example of this was including secondary aims such as "improving posture", though legitimate, I needed to refer to my problem list instead and see what issues could be addressed before posture. Perhaps, this could've contributed to more obvious progress to be seen in a session.
So yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all fledgling OTs really want in the world is to see their clients make progress. A wiser person that me once said "Helping one person might not change the world but it will change the world for one person". Our contribution as students to our clients' progress may not have been profound, but somewhere along the way, here's hoping that a difference was made.
Until next time,
Kaylee
References:
Cooper, B. (2019). How to Measure Progress in Your Personal Goals: Daily, Weekly and Monthly. Retrieved from https://buffer.com/resources/how-to-measure-progress-in-your-personal-goals-daily-weekly-and-monthly
Tas, J. (2019). More robots, less cancer, no diabetes. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/future-health/healthcare-predictions/
Pictures:
https://www.google.com/search?q=growth+gif&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm5Mj_2PrhAhVHzYUKHRkADJ8Q_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=689#imgrc=KZTEZfKovpWgzM:
https://www.google.com/search?q=growth+gif&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm5Mj_2PrhAhVHzYUKHRkADJ8Q_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=689#imgrc=xHs4jzg6Mrj3dM:
Noting progress that I've specifically contributed towards is really tricky at my fieldwork site, where the rehab team is so efficient resulting in clients improving by the day. Sometimes, I've questioned my own assessment findings- how can my client be walking on Monday when last week Wednesday he couldn't even stand?! I've seen rapid progress in every single one of my clients, which makes me very proud to be in this profession. However, I'm hesitant to take any credit for progress, as the rest of the MDT (multidisciplinary team) is just so fantastic at the work they do. I've definitely put my all into my interventions with clients, but always feel like I could be doing more. Nevertheless, during a session with a client of mine a few weeks ago I noted direct improvement from the beginning of the session to the end of the session in her ability to hip-hitch after working with me. Its certainly not miracle work, but I was chuffed.
Similarly, I've noticed how through my handling of clients and a change in communication techniques I'm able to get my clients to interact more with me. I've mostly been working with aphasic clients, so the chatter is usually one-sided, though I did notice that a recent client of mine with global aphasia who would normally not make too much eye-contact with me, began to turn to face me and displayed an increased variety of facial expressions to indicate responses to my speech. Small progress, but progress nonetheless. Progress with all of my aphasic clients has been wonderful to note. I've been sure to include components in my session where they can practice verbalizing and grade my use sentences so that there's increased complexity, forcing them to respond using hand signals and gestures. What is clear is that each member of the team is reinforcing work of the other members, in this way progress cannot be attributed to an individual member's work, but I am able to say that my actions lent themselves to some contribution to overall progress by reinforcing therapy. Once, I walked into the dining room and saw a nurse handing an assistive device I had made for feeding to my client, who then picked it up and scooped her cereal into her mouth independently. That was a very happy day for me.
Cooper (2019) found that measuring your progress can lead to an improved emotional state. As students, setting goals for our clients and having them achieve them is something that we can do at the outset of treatment, and whether we, or the team, contributes to the goal's success is immaterial as we can take emotional satisfaction from knowing that the goal is met. As we progress as professionals, we'll begin caring about progress in not only our patients, but the healthcare system too. I've learnt through this block, just how influential policies are to our functioning and how much behind-the-scenes action goes into therapy. Tas (2019) describes how the future of medicine is all about real-time work, communication and integration of resources to achieve successful treatment. As we've only just begun our journey, its exciting to think about how many more cases we'll get to be apart of and how many lives we can impact, whilst medicine continues to evolve around us.
I think that more progress could've been made quicker if I had attempted to integrate a few more areas of treatment into sessions. Often we go into a session with one main aim and a few secondary to keep our mindset clear of what we hope to achieve. With a few of the clients that I've had lately, I felt that perhaps my secondary aims were not impactful enough and that if I had put more thought into the session I could have had more secondary aims that were of significant benefit. An example of this was including secondary aims such as "improving posture", though legitimate, I needed to refer to my problem list instead and see what issues could be addressed before posture. Perhaps, this could've contributed to more obvious progress to be seen in a session.
So yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all fledgling OTs really want in the world is to see their clients make progress. A wiser person that me once said "Helping one person might not change the world but it will change the world for one person". Our contribution as students to our clients' progress may not have been profound, but somewhere along the way, here's hoping that a difference was made.
Until next time,
Kaylee
References:
Cooper, B. (2019). How to Measure Progress in Your Personal Goals: Daily, Weekly and Monthly. Retrieved from https://buffer.com/resources/how-to-measure-progress-in-your-personal-goals-daily-weekly-and-monthly
Tas, J. (2019). More robots, less cancer, no diabetes. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/future-health/healthcare-predictions/
Pictures:
https://www.google.com/search?q=growth+gif&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm5Mj_2PrhAhVHzYUKHRkADJ8Q_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=689#imgrc=KZTEZfKovpWgzM:
https://www.google.com/search?q=growth+gif&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm5Mj_2PrhAhVHzYUKHRkADJ8Q_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=689#imgrc=xHs4jzg6Mrj3dM:
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