a young occupational therapist

Discussing aging and sexual health was very intriguing. While we are exposed to sexuality and sexual health early on in our program, this lecture brought a whole new thought process to life. We really dove into the understanding of the older adult physiology and psychology when it comes to having sex later in life.  One of the concepts that struck me as highly interesting, was the impact sexual health has on emotion and physical well-being in humans. We don't consider the fact that orgasms can relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve sleep, all while also allowing us to feel closer emotionally to our partners. 1 Also, orgasms can increase the lifespan; one study identified that having an orgasm 2 times per week can increase the lifespan by 8 years. 1   That is an awesome statistic to me! If you knew there was a miracle medicine to increase you lifespan, would you take it? I'm sure you would. So why not consider this option for your clients.  On the flip side of that, i

What is one thing we can all associate with driving?? FREEDOM I still remember the day I was handed the keys to my first car; no more waiting on mom to pick me up from practice/school functions, no more having to ask for a ride to the movies, no more aligning of our daily schedules just so I could go eat dinner with my friends that Friday night. Driving is important at any age, but we don’t think of its importance until its gone. Today in class, our guest lecturer spoke on driving and community mobility for not only the aging population, but also those with varying disabilities. For each of these populations, driving is still an important occupation, and signifies their freedom. And sometimes that freedom can be hard to hand over to someone else. From today, I can really take away two big ideas: 1)     The way you approach your clients will always matter. Our speaker discussed how hard it can be to tell someone that they did not pass their driving assessmen

Glyph: a character, symbol, or picture with an agreed upon meaning to create a message or story. Now, the above definition is not a professional one from Google, however, it is the best way to describe the glyphs we have created during our OT coursework. During our first year of OT   school, my classmates and I completed individual glyphs based upon our meaning of what we thought leadership meant.  The symbols came together to form a picture of a person.   For example, if you see yourself as a leader, you should draw on your character an accessory. Over a year later we took those same descriptions and made a second picture. It is crazy how much your ideations can change over the course of a single year.  Here are each of my glyphs, side by side; the left one from February 2018 and the right picture from July 2019. As you can see, my thoughts on what leadership is have changed in some ways, whereas in other concepts, they stayed the same.  OT school has shaped and molded me to see

Nutrition in older adults has become a serious issue within the medical field. I think we can all agree that nutrition at any age has an effect on your quality of life, mental health, physical health, and so much more. For older adults, their bodies process nutrients less efficiently, and when they are in hospitals or other healthcare facilities, their bodies are in “stressed states,” leading their systems to become hypermetabolic (increased metabolism) and catabolic (breaking down chemical reactions). In other words, their bodies are working overtime to try and return to its normal state, and to accomplish this, they will need increased caloric intake. While there has been much research done about the needs of a person when their bodies are malnourished, little is being done to actually take that research and use it to provide better nutrition to these older adults that are in hospitals, long term facilities, and even community-based settings. As we discussed in our n