Foundations Project

Transfatty Lives

Transfatty Lives is a documentary on Netflix made by DJ Transfatty, aka Patrick O'Brien, about his journey with ALS. O'Brien was diagnosed with ALS in 2005 at the age of 31 and decided to make an artistic documentary about his journey. The documentary starts with O'Brien's diagnosis, shows him starting a relationship and having a son, becoming depressed, moving into a nursing home, and moving into an ALS skilled facility. O'Brien opted to have a feeding tube placed and be put on a ventilator. He told the doctor placing the feeding tube that he wanted to be "an electric vegetable", meaning he wanted to live as long as possible. The documentary ends with O'Brien's family and friends saying that the reason O'Brien has lived so long is because he still has a goal to reach, a mission to accomplish. O'Brien has been battling ALS for 12 years. This is an extremely long time to be living with ALS, considering the average lifespan after diagnosis is...

Do's and Don'ts of Presenting

Presenting in front of any number of people is something I find extremely intimidating and very anxiety provoking. I do just about e verything I can to avoid talking to more than 4 people at a time. My senior year of college I took an online public speaking class to avoid speaking in public to a random group of people. As a result, I continue to struggle with presenting and unfortunately, online public speaking isn't an option in grad school. One of the topics we cover in our Leadership II class is how to best present yourself during speeches, projects or interviews. A resource we were given was titled "6 Ways to Look More Confident During a Presentation". I was intrigued. As I read the article my eyes were opened to just how much your body language impacts what you say. The article talks about how a group of people skilled in reading body language went to a tech entrepreneur competition and watched contestants body language and how it correlated to the scores they rec...

Expanding on Theory

The Neuro-Developmental Treatment Frame of Reference is a theory that is used to analyze and treat posture and movement impairments based on kinesiology, the study of human movement, and biomechanics, the study of forces and mechanical laws and their effects on movement in living organisms. It takes into account planes of movement, alignment, range of motion (the degrees of movement that a client has), muscle strength, base of support, postural control, weight shifts, and mobility when making a plan for intervention. The goal is to get the client to engage in meaningful occupations, which is done through assuming that posture and movement impairments are able to be changed. This theory can be used with children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. According to this theory, to be functional means that the client would be able to engage in meaningful occupations. An occupational therapist would look at upper extremity movement, specifically: reaching, grasping, releasing objects, self ...

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