Skip to main content

Nutrition & OT

Today in class we had a guest lecturer who spoke to us about nutrition and how OT's can be more involved. Nutrition is something that my OT's don't think about. Eating and feeding are within our scope of practice, but anything else to do with calorie consumption falls under the scope of a dietician. Essentially what we learned today was that when patients are in the hospital they are not getting enough calories/nutrients and so healing takes longer. This impacts therapy because without proper nutrition, patients are unable to do what we ask of them and do not make progress towards their goals.

There are several ways that an OT can provide a nutrition intervention for their client. Prior to starting OT school, I observed a feeding session at a pediatric outpatient facility. Kids blew bubbles to prepare to eat and then rolled the dice to see how many times they had to lick/smell a food and then rolled the dice again to see how many bites of a certain food they had to take before the session was over. This was called "Food School" and was a very fun activity to participate in. In addition to the child and the therapist participating in the activity, parents, siblings and the therapy dog at the facility were invited to join in. For adult clients a nutrition intervention could be helping them to prepare a nutritious meal and then invite a dietician to cover the finer details of nutrition. This could be done individually or in a small group setting.

At the end of the day proper nutrition is what enables us to participate in meaningful activities. While OT might not be the expert in the area of nutrition, we do have something valuable to bring to the table. By consulting a dietician on the proper nutrition needs of our clients, we can help them get back to their meaningful activities and live healthier lives.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OT's and Driving

Today in class we had a guest lecturer who is a driving rehabilitation specialist. He talked to us about the various diagnoses he sees, interventions and adaptations. It was a really cool class! We broke down just a few of the many components of driving and talked about how each diagnosis can alter/impair a persons driving capability. After the lecture we tried various assessments like the MoCA and SIMARD-MD on each other and went to look at the adaptive van he brought. Listening to this guest speaker today made me realize that OT's can be very beneficial when helping to determine if someone is safe to drive. One intervention you could do would be getting a larger rear view mirror to help someone who had limited range of motion in their neck to be able to see in their blind spots. Another intervention could be going to a muscular dystrophy clinic or primary care office and offering an inservice so the staff could be more informed and know who to refer to. Overall today was a ve
Post a Comment
Read more

O'Brien Occupational Profile/Review

Occupational Profile Client demographics: Joe O’Brien, 44 years old, 04/21/2018 Client Report Reason the client is seeking OT services and concerns related to engagement in occupations (may include the client’s general health status) Joe is seeking OT services because he was recently diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease and he would like to slow the progression of his symptoms. Joe has issues with his temper, being still, holding objects, and drinking from a normal glass. Occupations in which the client is successful and barriers or potential barriers to his/her success in those occupations (p. S5) Joe enjoys: Working as a police officer, spending time with his family, drinking with friends, and watching baseball. The main barrier to the activities he enjoys is the chorea. It causes him to move almost constantly and it also causes him some embarrassment. Personal interests and values (
Post a Comment
Read more

OT School Glyph

During one of the first weeks of OT school we did a glyph key drawings. This meant that if we felt one way about something then we made our head square, if we felt another way then we made our head a circle. We did this for various features until the drawing was completed. Recently we did the glyph drawing again with a year and a half of OT school experience under our belts. It was so interesting to see how our drawings changed. It was so cool to see how much I had grown though my OT school experience based on my two drawings. Most of my drawing stayed the same, but what changed was how I saw myself as a leader. Through this year and a half journey I have been pushed to be more of a leader than I thought I could be. One of the prompts was add a hat if the way you think about or approach to leadership has changed as a result of what you have learned since the beginning of OT school. For my most recent drawing I drew a hat. Since OT school my perspective of leadership has really change
Post a Comment
Read more