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Author Archive for: jentwistle

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Daily Dose of Inspiration

“There is no experience better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”
                                                             John Andrew Holmer
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Spring Cleaning and Your Weight Loss Goals

Spring has arrived!  Are you feeling the itch to clean and refresh your home?  Are you also frantically starting to diet and exercise to be ready for summer?    Did you know that cleaning burns calories?   By simply rearranging your closets you can burn up to 85 calories—not to mention the calories burned by mopping, vacuuming, and just spending a few hours on your feet moving about the house.  Check out this article featured in the Huffington Post to find out other ways to burn calories while cleaning.

The Huffington Post: Spring Cleaning: How Many Calories Do You Burn Doing Chores?

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Daily Dose of Inspiration

Jessica Cox’s favourite words of wisdom are “never let your fears get in the way of your opportunities.”  As a person born with no arms Jessica has learned to live a normal life via adaptation.  Jessica has recently become the first woman without arms to become a licensed pilot, and her many remarkable accomplishments are an inspiration to all. 

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The Rehabilitation of Organization

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

Previously on our blog I outlined the importance of organization in helping people with limited energy reserves to make sure their energy is spent on enjoyable or purposeful tasks and is not wasted looking for things that should be easy to find.

Helping clients to become more organized can take many forms, depending on the client, the nature of their problems, and how they previously organized their stuff and their time.  What I tend to witness is the time lost and sheer frustration that clients experience looking for cell phones, wallets and keys.  Often, cell phones become used as a “second brain” assisting people to maintain a schedule and make appointments (calendar), remember things (task lists), have access to support systems (contacts, calls, text, email), and negotiate their environment (maps and GPS).  If this gadget is so important, it is even more important that people know where it is.  Having a catch tray by the front door, in their room, or a standard docking station can be helpful.  Wallets and keys should also be left in a consistent location.  I am sure we can all relate to that feeling of looking for our keys in their usual spot to find they are missing.  But if you lack the ability to efficiently look for these, or the energy, it could completely derail your plans.

After the day to day items have a place, then as a therapist we can work with our clients to simplify other spaces that are barriers to function.  Perhaps the kitchen has become too cluttered to allow for efficient meal preparation, or the bills are piling up because these become forgotten in a stack of papers.  In the world of insurance I find that clients become overwhelmed by the paperwork and this results in them missing appointments, not responding to time sensitive material, or failing to submit for expense reimbursement.

Slowly, over time and with suggestions and tools (filing cabinets, labels, folders) clients will be able to more efficiently spend their units of energy on things that are more important, or more fun.

 

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You Can’t Afford to be Disorganized

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

We all have different levels of energy, tolerance and mental attention.  If suffering from chronic pain, brain injury, or another chronic condition, chances are the DD battery that you used to have has been replaced with some AAA’s.  This means that daily activities will take more time, more energy, and you will need to recharge sooner.  So, considering this, do you really want to spend your valuable energy looking for stuff? 

Consider that you have 10 units of energy when you wake in the morning.  Every activity you have on your “to do” list takes one unit.  Going for a walk, preparing supper, managing the laundry, responding to emails, attending an appointment, completing personal care, and having coffee with a friend all drain your battery.  Some of these activities are necessary, some can be put off, and others are enjoyable.  So what if you spend one unit of energy looking for your phone, that bill that needs to be paid, your agenda, or those new runners you bought yesterday?  What activity will come off your list when you have spent your energy to find something that with some organization would have taken you no time at all?  Maybe you will call your friend to cancel, or order supper in again.  Maybe the laundry will wait to tomorrow, or those emails will just keep accumulating. But this is unnecessary because you had the energy, it just became misdirected.

Often the focus of occupational therapy becomes helping people to organize their activities, their stuff or their time.  Schedules and consistency are keys to helping people to understand the size of their battery and the amount of units each activity takes.  This can be difficult when working with clients who did not need to be organized before an injury or illness, but the necessity of this following cannot be ignored.   Even small steps to help people to be more organized can have a huge impact.