Summer has officially begun and fresh fruits and vegetables are a plenty. Why not join the “eat local” food movement! A great way to spend a summer day is to visit a local farm or farmers market and take in some of the healthy fresh items the season has to offer. Check out the following links to help you find local farms and farmer’s markets in Ontario’s.
Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)
Occupational therapists play an important role in helping people of all ages to function independently, to engage in meaningful activity, and to experience joy in life regardless of disability. In this role, we are often in a position of advocate as we aim to help people achieve their most promising outcomes. But even better than an OT swinging for the fences to help a client, are those clients that can metaphorically pick up the bat and hit it out of the park themselves.
Recently I read an article highlighting the power of self-advocacy. The article spoke of a boy named Peter who has cerebral palsy. Peter, as a result of reduced fine and gross motor control, was struggling to use the standard Play Station Controller. He took it upon himself to email Sony’s support team to ask for help. To his surprise, not only did he receive a response, but Sony’s team built and sent him a modified controller to use. That is self-advocacy at work, and kudos to Sony for working with Peter to accommodate his needs. (See the article here.)
Self-Advocacy
This story provides a great example of the power of self-advocacy. Self-advocacy refers to an individual’s ability to effectively communicate, convey or assert their own interests, desires, needs and rights. It’s the ability to speak up on your own behalf to ask for what you need.
Self advocacy skills can be broken down into 3 steps:
1. Understanding your individual strengths and weaknesses,
2. Knowing what supports or resources are available in order to succeed
3. Communicating these needs to other people
Why is Self-Advocacy Important?
Self-advocacy is a vital part of being human and is a great skill to harness and utilize as it helps people to:
How Can OT’s help?
OT’s can assist in promoting self-advocacy in multiple ways. First, OT’s recognize the importance of facilitating client independence and strive to help people to develop the confidence and skills to communicate their own needs and wants. Often we can identify where people can be successful here, and where help might be needed. We model appropriate advocacy behavior on behalf of our clients during interactions with other providers or stakeholders. Or, when necessary, we advocate on a client’s behalf until they develop the skills to do this independently.
In the end, advocacy is becoming more and more important in the climate of restricted healthcare dollars. So whether we are helping people access an important health service, to address a new problem, or sending an email to a major manufacturer about a video game console, assisting people to have a voice, or to develop a voice is a paramount part of great OT.
Wishing you and yours a safe and happy Canada Day!
Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)
Last stop for Brain Injury Awareness Month – my favorite topic – organization!
Yes, this is my drawer system to store pens, pencils, and markers. And if I find a pencil in the pen drawer look out! Perhaps being organized and knowing how to find what I need when I need it is one of the many ways I manage the demands of being a business owner and mother of four. But the reality is that we all have different levels of energy, tolerance and mental attention and these things can become depleted after a brain injury. So, if you were an energizer bunny with a DD battery before your injury, chances are your new batteries have 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 brain capacity and 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, keys, 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 and cognitive ability to manage these things, 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.
Helping clients with brain injury 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, it could completely derail your day.
After the day to day items have a place, then we can work to simplify other spaces that are identified barriers to function. Perhaps the kitchen has become too cluttered to allow for efficient meal preparation, or the bills are piling up because these are lost in a stack of papers. In the world of insurance I find that clients become overwhelmed by paperwork and this results in missed appointments, non-response to time sensitive material, or failure to submit for expense reimbursement. Slowly, over time and with suggestions and tools (filing cabinets, labels, folders, a pen drawer!) clients become able to more efficiently spend their units of energy on things that are more important, or more fun and ideally, learn to transfer these strategies into other life areas independently – like work, school or parenting.
To read more of our articles on brain injury check out our section on Brain Health.
Do you know the signs of a stroke? Remember to think “FAST.”
The following video from the Heart and Stroke Foundation provides you with some additional information on how to recognize the warning signs. Knowing these signs and taking quick action can help save a life!
Should tomatoes go in the fridge or stay on the counter? What about pears and watermelon? We spend a lot of money to purchase healthy fresh fruits and vegetables, so let’s not let them go to waste! The following from Health Magazine provides you with some of great tips for storing fresh fruits and veggies.
Health Magazine: You’re Probably Storing and Prepping Your Produce Wrong
Co-written by Jacquelyn Bonneville, Occupational Therapist and proud member of the LGBTQ community
Have you ever been on vacation to Jamaica, Dominica, or St. Lucia? Have you ever Googled pictures of the beautiful Maldives? Did you know that all of these countries, and some 70 others, have anti-homosexuality laws punishable by fine, imprisonment, or death? Globally we still have a long way to go, but like all progress, we must remain proud of the steps forward we are taking in regards for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) awareness and rights.
Pride month is celebrated in June in every year in honour of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, USA; a turning point for LGBTQ activism. If you don’t identify with this culture you may not feel that pride month is relevant to you, however the spirit of pride month is to embrace diversity and peace, which all of us should celebrate, especially as proud Canadians. This point, and the concept of peace, is even more prominent today considering the recent events in Orlando that resulted in the senseless killing of 49 innocent people as they attended a nightclub frequented by the LGBTQ community.
In honour of pride month, we’d like to offer 3 simple ways you can make your business more LGBTQ friendly:
1. Challenge your assumptions.
It can be easy to assume that everyone is straight; when you ask a man if he has a wife, or a woman if she has a husband, you could be unintentionally making an awkward scenario for a non-straight person. If you have an intake form that only has two gender options (male or female), you could be instantly excluding someone, or causing them to feel uncomfortable about your services.
As therapists we are often in a position of asking about our client’s social supports. Instead of making assumptions, ask more open-ended questions such as “Are you in relationship with someone right now”, “who is your main source of support”, or “do you have a significant other?” Have an “other” option for gender on intake forms, or include sex as well as gender if someone’s sexual organs are relevant to your medical field. Consider expanding “married” on your intake process to include “common law” and “long term relationship”. You’ll still get the information you need, but in a more inclusive way.
2. Don’t be afraid you’ll use the wrong terminology.
My husband’s name is Kelly. Many times people have assumed he would be female: he has been put on the girls’ draw in tennis tournaments, rendered us to win the prize for the “ladies best foursome” in a golf event, and often our mail and solicitation calls are directed to Mrs. Kelly. We’ve all called someone by the wrong name / gender accidentally before. It’s embarrassing – usually they correct us, we apologize, and chances are you’ll never forget their name again. It happens, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t a big deal.
Gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, bigender, cisgender, gender fluid, asexual, feminine/masculine of center, intersex, MSM/WSM, pansexual, trans*, two-spirit, ze – what does it all mean? If you are not part of any particular minority group, it can be difficult to know if you’re wording something ‘correctly’ and it may make you uncomfortable. You may even be afraid to offend someone – isn’t ‘queer’ an offensive term? It all comes down to individual preference – and you won’t know until you ask.
Instead of assuming a person is Sir or Ma’am, Mr. or Mrs. based on your assumption of their gender, get used to asking more inclusive, generalized questions as part of your daily routine. There is nothing wrong with asking a client/patient, “What’s your preferred name?” or “How should I address you?” And if you slip and use the wrong pronoun or term in addressing them, simply apologize, correct yourself, and move on. Besides, a good businessperson should have a healthy dose of humility – your clients will respect you more for trying to use their preferred terminology, even if you make a mistake. Don’t worry.
3. Understand some of the systemic barriers LGBTQ persons may face in your system.
Knowledge of some of the challenges in your own business that directly affects persons of various sexual orientations and genders will only make your business more inclusive. Some questions that may be relevant to health care professions include: Can a bisexual person donate blood in your city? Is a transperson legally able to give emergency medical consent if their loved one is unconscious? Will a queer person be safe in a shared hospital room if their partner comes to visit them?
Health care isn’t as easily accessible as you may think. It can be very challenging to find competent medical and rehabilitation practitioners that are educated on health factors more common in certain minority populations, and so not all people feel they can be open with their family doctor or access health care without judgment. Knowledge is power – keep an eye out for changing laws, trends, or factors affecting the LGBTQ population in your area.
In the end, consider adopting some of these strategies into your everyday life, and you’ll be making maximum impact with minimal effort. To quote a Futurama cartoon episode:
“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”
No one may notice you changed your language, or thank you for making the change – but to that client who needs to know that they’re safe with you, I guarantee you that your choice of inclusive words will make all the difference.
As Occupational Therapists we are lucky to be able to assess our clients holistically, and to consider all of the factors that may be affecting their occupational performance including sexual orientation, gender, sex, and social support networks. We can constantly challenge our assumptions to help develop into even better practitioners.
Happy pride month!
A man is born in 1982 and dies in 1962 at the age of 35. How is this possible?
He was born in room 1982 and died in room 1962 of the hospital.
Do you know what to do if you or someone you love suffers a concussion? First and foremost, visit your physician who will assess your injuries and provide you with a recovery plan. To learn more download this fantastic resource, created by Parachute, which provides you with education and tools to help you prevent injury, recognize symptoms, keep track of your individual situation and help you recover from a concussion.
Did you know that 40% of Acquired Brain Injuries are the result of an automobile accident? And, that texting while driving is basically like driving with your eyes closed for 5 full seconds? Distracted driving is a major cause of injury and fatalities on our roads. What better way to celebrate Brain Injury Awareness month than to take the pledge today. Say I Don’t to texting and driving by visiting idont.ca created by the Ontario Brain Injury Association.