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What I Need to Know
I have always had an urge to help people, so i knew from a very young age that my occupation in the real world would include helping people for the greater good, but i didn’t know what that would be whether it was mission work or being a doctor. I was very eager to enter high school because I knew that it would be the place where i would find out what im most interested in, and potentially what I would want to do for the rest of my life. As i took many courses throughout high school, i found that i enjoyed science the most, specifically psychology and anatomy. In these two courses, I was able to learn how the brain really works, and ever since I have been very determined to further my knowledge about the brain. Due to the fact that there is still so much to learn about the brain and its processes, I have decided that I would like to go to college to learn more about medicine to be able to become a doctor and research the brain, and my internship is just the beginning of this process. When I entered the program, I expected that I was going to be shadowing a neurologist at a large hospital, but instead I was placed at the urgent care for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in the occupational and physical therapy wings. At first I was confused with this placement, but I have always been open for trying new things. After all, i am only a senior in high school, so it is very likely that once I actually start studying medicine in college that i will change my mind a few times about what area I would like to be specialized. Before I started interning in the occupational therapy wing, I knew next to nothing about what occupational therapy actually was, so i knew that I had a lot to learn from the internship. I then learned that occupational therapy is a form of rehabilitation for people who have learning disabilities and mental illnesses through activities required in daily life. Learning this, I assumed that we would just be playing games with children, teaching them how to cope with their emotions and how to deal with their mental illnesses. Once I started the internship, I noticed that each therapist had a specific treatment plan for each individual patient depending on the severity of their disorder, rather than a similar treatment plan for all their patients to work around. The therapist would have different activities planned for each patient, and I wondered how these activities ultimately benefited these children. I found this process interesting, so it led me to my essential question “How can the treatment plans for patients with sensory processing disorder (spd), provided by the occupational therapists at my internship at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, benefit the everyday lives of these children?”
What I Know or Assume
Before entering the occupational therapy internship, I had very basic knowledge over what occupational therapy actually was. I was aware that occupational therapists use rehabilitation for people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses and that they present activities to each patient that will help them with activities that people complete in a normal day. I originally assumed that occupational therapy wouldn’t interest me due to the fact that I was set on shadowing someone who specializes in neurology, but once I started the internship I realized that the disorders that caused the patients to need occupational therapy were based on mental disorders that they have, which is the part of psychology that originally interested me and made me want to enter the medical field.
The Search
In terms of the search for resources for my topic, I looked through Galileo, libraries, and I elaborated off of my own experiences during my occupational therapy internship. The research and information presented in all of the sources that I looked at aligned with what I was exposed to at my internship, so I knew that the information from the sources that I found online was relevant and pertinent to my topic. Throughout this process, I learned that my essential question/topic was a well researched topic in the fact that there was a lot of research on it out there, so I had no problem finding an abundance of sources. Also, all of the sources that I used from an online database proved to be credible as they were all written by doctors who practice medicine in the field and professors who have also researched this topic for many years, and the information was relevant since they were all published within the last 10 years.
Mentor Interview
What type of education did you need to become an occupational therapist?
What I Discovered
During the occupational therapy appointments, the time is split in half so the patients can spend half of their time in the gym and the other half in the classroom. My mentor’s treatment plan for most of her patients required that the patients begin the appointment in the gym to get their “wiggles” out. In the gym, my mentor would expose the children to situations that they would most likely be uncomfortable in. For example, if a patient gets overwhelmed with the sense of touch, she will put them in a situation in which they are exposed to many different items that touch them or that they will have to touch. This part of the treatment plan allows for the patient to become more accustomed to the sense of touch and hopefully have a positive reaction to it when faced with it in a public setting or when faced with it in their daily routine. After the gym, the student is brought to the classroom where they usually will first do a craft and then work on their writing skills. Working on the craft allows the patient to work on their fine motor skills, which many patients with SPD have trouble with. They will do things such as tearing pieces of construction paper, using a pair of scissors, or just using a pencil to write. All of these actions work the children’s fine motor skills, and practicing these skills at their appointment and at home will allow the child to not have as much trouble with simple daily tasks that they will need to complete later in life. The treatment plans that are created specifically for each patient that comes into occupational therapy benefit the lives of these children by exposing them to situations they are uncomfortable in and situations that they will be prone to experience in their daily routine. Having these treatment plans will allow the children to live in a better and more comfortable way so that they won’t be overwhelmed with their senses in public settings.
I have always had an urge to help people, so i knew from a very young age that my occupation in the real world would include helping people for the greater good, but i didn’t know what that would be whether it was mission work or being a doctor. I was very eager to enter high school because I knew that it would be the place where i would find out what im most interested in, and potentially what I would want to do for the rest of my life. As i took many courses throughout high school, i found that i enjoyed science the most, specifically psychology and anatomy. In these two courses, I was able to learn how the brain really works, and ever since I have been very determined to further my knowledge about the brain. Due to the fact that there is still so much to learn about the brain and its processes, I have decided that I would like to go to college to learn more about medicine to be able to become a doctor and research the brain, and my internship is just the beginning of this process. When I entered the program, I expected that I was going to be shadowing a neurologist at a large hospital, but instead I was placed at the urgent care for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta in the occupational and physical therapy wings. At first I was confused with this placement, but I have always been open for trying new things. After all, i am only a senior in high school, so it is very likely that once I actually start studying medicine in college that i will change my mind a few times about what area I would like to be specialized. Before I started interning in the occupational therapy wing, I knew next to nothing about what occupational therapy actually was, so i knew that I had a lot to learn from the internship. I then learned that occupational therapy is a form of rehabilitation for people who have learning disabilities and mental illnesses through activities required in daily life. Learning this, I assumed that we would just be playing games with children, teaching them how to cope with their emotions and how to deal with their mental illnesses. Once I started the internship, I noticed that each therapist had a specific treatment plan for each individual patient depending on the severity of their disorder, rather than a similar treatment plan for all their patients to work around. The therapist would have different activities planned for each patient, and I wondered how these activities ultimately benefited these children. I found this process interesting, so it led me to my essential question “How can the treatment plans for patients with sensory processing disorder (spd), provided by the occupational therapists at my internship at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, benefit the everyday lives of these children?”
What I Know or Assume
Before entering the occupational therapy internship, I had very basic knowledge over what occupational therapy actually was. I was aware that occupational therapists use rehabilitation for people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses and that they present activities to each patient that will help them with activities that people complete in a normal day. I originally assumed that occupational therapy wouldn’t interest me due to the fact that I was set on shadowing someone who specializes in neurology, but once I started the internship I realized that the disorders that caused the patients to need occupational therapy were based on mental disorders that they have, which is the part of psychology that originally interested me and made me want to enter the medical field.
The Search
In terms of the search for resources for my topic, I looked through Galileo, libraries, and I elaborated off of my own experiences during my occupational therapy internship. The research and information presented in all of the sources that I looked at aligned with what I was exposed to at my internship, so I knew that the information from the sources that I found online was relevant and pertinent to my topic. Throughout this process, I learned that my essential question/topic was a well researched topic in the fact that there was a lot of research on it out there, so I had no problem finding an abundance of sources. Also, all of the sources that I used from an online database proved to be credible as they were all written by doctors who practice medicine in the field and professors who have also researched this topic for many years, and the information was relevant since they were all published within the last 10 years.
Mentor Interview
What type of education did you need to become an occupational therapist?
- “I needed four years of undergraduate school and I did two years of graduate school, but soon I will be getting my doctorate.”
How long have you been an occupational therapist for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta? - “I have been an occupational therapist for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for three months.”
What is the age range of your patients? - “My patients here in outpatient usually range between 6 months to 16 years old, and when I’m working in the hospital we see kids up to 21.”
What is your favorite thing about your job? - “I love that I get to help people participate in activities that are meaningful to them and I can help them learn new ways of doing the things that they want to do, need to do, and like to do.”
When did you first decide to become an occupational therapist and why? - “I decided to become an occupational therapist because when I was younger my cousin actually had a series of strokes when he was 8 years old, and since I am very close with my cousins, I was very involved in the therapy side of things. I learned to play with him in new ways and I was kind of there for his rehabilitation process. I knew I wanted to do therapy since I was in middle school, so I just kind of shadowed all the different therapies and shadowed some physician assistants, and I just felt like occupational therapy was the best fit for me.”
Is there any aspect of your job that is frustrating at times? If so, please explain. - “Insurance authorizations and things like that can sometimes be frustrating. It is frustrating when a kid can really benefit from something that is hard for them to get access to, so I think that is one part of the job that can be frustrating.”
What about your job do you find most rewarding? - “I think that seeing kids be able to do these daily tasks that they are having a really hard time with, once you see them making progress and being able to participate in those things more independently is really rewarding and seeing how that affects a family in a positive way.”
With regards to Sensory Processing Disorder, do you feel that it is easier to treat school age students than toddlers? Toddlers than school age students? - “I think that it really varies not so much by age, but more by what else the kid has going on and how severe their sensory processing difficulties are. I think it just depends on things that they have happening too, so not really age difference, but I would say that kids behaviors have a really big impact if you have a kid that is really more behavioral that also has SPD makes it more challenging to help them make improvements in that area.”
What areas of growth do you see for yourself in the field of occupational therapy? - “I am really excited about a lot of things right now. I am a new therapist, so I have a lot of ideas of what I am interested in. I am interested in treating sensory processing based kids and I also love the hospital setting, so I would like to be certified in physical agent modalities (PAM) including paraffins and electrostimulation.”
What are your future plans? - “Well, my future plans are to integrate dance in therapy by creating a social skills dance group for CHOA, so that is kind of like a three year plan for me. I was a dance major for undergraduate school, so that is a big passion of mine, and I just think there is so much that dance lends to therapy in terms of social skills, physical benefits, and emotional benefits.”
What I Discovered
During the occupational therapy appointments, the time is split in half so the patients can spend half of their time in the gym and the other half in the classroom. My mentor’s treatment plan for most of her patients required that the patients begin the appointment in the gym to get their “wiggles” out. In the gym, my mentor would expose the children to situations that they would most likely be uncomfortable in. For example, if a patient gets overwhelmed with the sense of touch, she will put them in a situation in which they are exposed to many different items that touch them or that they will have to touch. This part of the treatment plan allows for the patient to become more accustomed to the sense of touch and hopefully have a positive reaction to it when faced with it in a public setting or when faced with it in their daily routine. After the gym, the student is brought to the classroom where they usually will first do a craft and then work on their writing skills. Working on the craft allows the patient to work on their fine motor skills, which many patients with SPD have trouble with. They will do things such as tearing pieces of construction paper, using a pair of scissors, or just using a pencil to write. All of these actions work the children’s fine motor skills, and practicing these skills at their appointment and at home will allow the child to not have as much trouble with simple daily tasks that they will need to complete later in life. The treatment plans that are created specifically for each patient that comes into occupational therapy benefit the lives of these children by exposing them to situations they are uncomfortable in and situations that they will be prone to experience in their daily routine. Having these treatment plans will allow the children to live in a better and more comfortable way so that they won’t be overwhelmed with their senses in public settings.