Blogs

I’ve been an OTR for 34 years and sometimes, I still find it hard to explain what OTs do.

Have you ever had one of those days when everything you touched fell apart?
On a recent shopping trip I stopped into Walmart™ to pick up a wall clock for my home workshop. While I was looking at clocks I brushed against one and started the avalanche! An elderly woman walking by stopped and looked at me and said “Time Flies” and continued on her way. I figured, considering her age, she must know.

My husband, Kevin, and I decided to take our 3 youngest Grandchildren to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha Nebraska for Spring break. The Grandchildren are 12, 10 and 9- this means they are very mobile and articulate. Each Grandchild belongs to one of our three children—this (of course) is the equivalent of 3 different cultures colliding.
Day 1 was pleasant; the kids had not seen each other since Christmas. There was much circling each other, throwing comments, thoughts and ideas at each other--- nothing aggressive.

We are all allotted a portion of days in this that we call our lives. We’re born, we live, we die. Amen. What comes in between is what we call our life. This is the story of a particular point in the life of a woman; we’ll call her “Jenny”. Jenny has lived a long full life. At this point in her story, Jenny is 84 years old and she lives alone in a retirement community in the sunny South. Jenny is a vibrant, thoughtful person with deep spiritual roots with leanings and ties into the Buddhist community. In fact Jenny told me that she once met the Dali Lama in person!

10 Foods to Help Fight the Flu

We are officially in the heart of cold and flu season, and it isn’t going away any time soon. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the ominous season lasts from November through April. It has been a brutal one this year, and it seems more uncommon these days to run into someone who isn’t sick.

This presentation is based on the Spark of Life Club program developed and utilized in Australia. This presentation explores the underlying tenets and techniques of the Spark of Life program and explores how they can be used in everyday interactions with residents with dementia to maximize their ability to interact in social and functional situations.

Let’s face it. Life is really busy. Shuffling the demands of work, family and extracurricular activities can be very overwhelming. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time), it is necessary to rely on fast food chains to provide our daily nutrition. Sound ironic? It doesn’t have to be.

When you must make that drive through run (and we all have to at one point or another), here are a few options that won’t leave you feeling full of grease . . . or guilt:

This series is intended to help Key therapists deal with the changes that are likely with the new Medicare push to reduce the amount of anti-psychotic medications in nursing homes. Estimates of rates of use range from 27% to 40%. This sounds high, but consider what anti-psychotics were designed for…can you guess? Right, treating psychosis!

n this article from the Sept 2012 issue of Provider Magazine, an expert offers some tips for building a strong MDS team and avoiding Medicare default payments. (written by Judi Kulus, NHA, RN)

If in sixty years from now my son or daughter is admitted to a healthcare facility, how would I want them to be treated? That’s the question I have frequently asked myself over my career as I have worked with patients. I ask myself that because I want to create and maintain a level of compassion for my patients and a passion for my profession. Sixty years from now I’ll be 116 years old, so it’s not likely that I’ll be the one providing care to my children. It will be someone else, and whoever it is, I want him or her to treat my children with respect, kindness and compassion.