I love hands.

They are more complicated than I could have imagined, though. I understand now why you need to be practicing for at least 5 years before you can even consider becoming a Certified Hand Therapist. You basically have to be a rocket scientist and know every muscle, tendon, origin, insertion, surgical procedure, rehab protocol and contraindication before you can touch the client.

During my second day of fieldwork I was able to go through a tendon gliding routine with a patient, and assess a patient's grip strength with the dynamometer. Next week I'll spend half of the day sitting in on surgeries! Awesome!

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Presenting at the NJOTA conference was incredible too. I had horrible dreams the night before that I freaked out and didn't show up at it. haha. It really was a lot of fun, and once I got up to talk, it all came out fine.

The conference was great for networking and learning. It's funny to talk to random people, and when you mention a place you've worked or had a fieldwork placement, people will always name someone they know. The OT world is really small, it amazes me.

I attended two lecture sessions, one was about contracture management and one was about the aging eye which gave an overview of natural changes that occur and common pathologies, as well as compensatory strategies and devices we can use.

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School is starting to pick up, and I'm almost at the overwhelmed point, but it's nothing like my first year. It's probably the same amount of work, but my coping/time management skills are improving. I'm taking 5 classes...
Adult Intervention
Adult Evaluation
Research
OT Skills III (UE)
Clinical Neuroscience

Time to get some work done.
Nap first. ;)

So it begins!

Year 2 has begun!

Today was my first day of adult fieldwork Level I. I am at an outpatient hand surgery and rehab hospital. It's incredible, fast-pasted, and exciting. The morning started out with an inservice about iontophoresis (read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iontophoresis). I was able to try on a patch (saline solution rather than dextro or other meds)... Anyway, it's sort of a combo of a portable TENS that delivers medication trans-dermally. It's used for a variety of purposes, ie- contractures, pain and scars. Very interesting!

I saw a variety of modalities today including ultrasound, heat, contrast bath, fluidotherapy, iontophoresis, vibration, etc... I was also able to assist a patient with his BTE program, which was awesome! Their BTE is computerized and customized for each client. I saw quite a few dx's today including carpal tunnel release, ulnar nerve translocation and a variety of fractures/ ORIF's. In a few weeks I'll probably get to observe a surgery!

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I'm also elected the secretary of our Student OT Association. Woo!


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This weekend I'm presenting at the NJOTA (New Jersey Occupational Therapy Association) conference. I'll be discussing the benefits of a social skills group for pre-school children with autism. We're discussing the research we've done about social skills, and the structure of our program so that other people can run it. This year I'm running three autism groups in three different towns, and it's really incredible how fast we're expanding. We're in the process of publishing a manual.

That's it for now..... things are good and busy. : )