What now?

Even though I have already presented for senior project, I will continue to volunteer at Casa Colina because it is a requirement to volunteer for six months and 100 hours a with the facilities. While continuing to observe and volunteer at Casa Colina's Children's Service Center, I hope to gain more knowledge in order to pursue this career.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Content

Literal

• Log to the right
• Kristin Horn at Casa Colina Children's Service Center

Interpretive

• The most important thing I learned from mentoring at Casa Colina in the Children's Service Center is understand what occupational therapist do for children. the duties of an OT that treats a child compared to an adult is very different. An OT that treats a child, treats the child for the better development of the child.

Analysis

• My observations of the social program, Kid's Crew, helped create my answers for my EQ. The improvement skills of children between the ages of four and eight with special needs was my focus and the social program gave me somewhat direct answers for my EQ. Talking to several of the otherOTs other than Kristin Horn also helped me develop answers for my EQ.

Fine Motor Exercise

An example of fine motor movement is like type, drawing, or pinching. It involves the "little" muscles of your fingers. Some kids have trouble controlling their fine motor muscles, so there are a few exercises OTs use to improve the kids' fine motor ability.

The pictures above are of the kids from Kid's Crew at Casa Colina, doing fine motor activities. Volunteers would put the lite brite pegs in the silly putty, and the kids would have to stretch and rip apart the putty to find the pegs and put it in the canvas.

Thought Bubble?

Above is a picture of one of the lesson in Kid's Crew. In this lesson the kid's learned about what and what not to say. Things that the kid's shouldn't say should stay in their thought bubble, in other words, their head. In the exercise above, the teacher asked the kids, "Would this go in your thought bubble or would you tell someone this?". The exercise was also to help the kids know what to say to stay on topic on a conversation. 

Started at "Yes I Can! Occupational Therapy Inc."

January 10, I started at a new occupational therapy clinic called Yes I Can! which specializes for kids from 0-3 with suspected autism. The clinic is a bit different from the CSC. Both clinics have a "gym" or sensory room (that's what it's called at Yes I Can!) but the clinic for the 0-3 year olds have a messy room and a feeding/fine motor room.

This is the feeding and fine motor room. Some of the kids have trouble eating, like they can eat certain textures of foods. I was talking to the OT there, Mary Ellen, and she told me that there was a child that only ate ketchup and another child that would throw-up at the sight of apple sauce and the sight of anything that had a similar texture to it. This is when and OT would intervene because since the child is throwing up with the sight of the texture, it interferes with the child's occupation to being able to eat and hold food down.
This is also the room where some of the kids will read books to help with their attention and do puzzles to practice their visual and orientation. I saw a child today do an alphabet puzzle by being about to recognize and say the letter even though it was upside down or tilted to the side. They were also able to quickly find the proper spot for the piece.







To the left is the sensory room, where the kids typically play. The goal of the room is to have the child enter the room, have a plan of what they want to do in the room, and execute their plan. Some kids won't know what to do, or will have an idea of what to do but won't execute it well. One child would chose a toy, like the blocks, dump it out and just leave it. The OT pointed out that they just had trouble executing because they were able to decide on what to play but not able to decide how they wanted to play.






Below is a picture of the Messy room(left) where typically the kids paint. A child who was nauseated by the texture and sight of shaving cream was also queasy about paint. Too get them use to both textures, Mary Ellen had them finger paint and make hand prints. For some kids she also pours rice or beans in the table and hides items, like cars of animals, in it so kids that have sensitive nerves can play in it. I did see one child recently, sit in the bean bucket (right) because their feet were sensitive. The feet would curl up when the beans were poured in it.

Above is a pamphlet from Yes I Can! and gift I got from one mom and her kids c:

First Day at CSC!

Today was my first day at the Children Services Center and I had a great time! I helped out with the Kid's Crew Program which is a social skills class of children 4-8, primarily serving kids on the autism spectrum, in which they learn greetings, appropriate body language, sharing, etc. Today I observed the kids ages 6-8 where they learned to do introductions. Since it was like a class, they got the chance to play outside where I played with them as well as inside where we played HeadBands.

Although before the class started I prepared the class by setting up the chairs in a half circle and covering the toys because it distracts the kids. When the class was over, two other volunteers and I cleaned up the classroom by simply putting the chairs back where they are suppose to go and wiping down the table. They wipe the tables down because the kids in the 4-6 year olds class drool a lot more and put their hands in their mouth.

While waiting to get picked up, I observed the two OTs working with other kids in the gym. I saw an OT have a little boy brush his teeth as one of the activities/ exercises which was interesting because its a challenge for some of these kids. When the last child left I cleaned the gym up by taking the hanging things off, and putting everything back where it was suppose to go.

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 hours check

Content:

1) I am doing my mentorship at Casa Colina Rehabitation in the Children Services Center (CSC) and will be starting mentorship with my family friend with a clinic called Yes I Can! Occupational Therapy Inc. tomorrow(1/10).

2) At the CSC my contact would be Kristen, who is in charge of the Kid's Crew Program and is an OT. The number of the CSC is (909) 596-7733 Ext. 4200 where the receptionist, Teri, will answer. You would just have to ask for Kristen. Another person you can talk to there is Sarah Yun, who is also an OT, or just email her at syun@casacolina.org. She is the one that made my schedule at the CSC to allow me to observe other OTs. My contact at Yes I Can! Occupational Therapy Inc. is Mary Ellen Florendo-Tan OTR/L (626) 667-7967.

3) I have done a total of 20 hours and 50 minutes, counting the 10 summer hours.

4) 8 hours of the 10 hours I did [not counting the summer hours] was office work and patient room checking. During this time I was working in the Patient Safety department where I helped nurses and made binders of the patients in the hospital. the last 2 hours and 50 minutes I did was in the Children Services Center where I prepared the classroom for the Kid's Crew Program. I observed the kids learn social skills and afterward was able to observe OTs work individually with kids.

5) Updated the contact info 

Children Services Center (CSC)

Forms from my CSC orientation

I'm transferring from Patient Safety to Children Services at Casa Colina where I will be able to observe occupational therapist work with children. I went to an orientation earlier this month and was shown the facilities. In the CSC the kids sort of work in a classroom environment and have a playground outside. Mary, a speech therapist who gave me the orientation, was very helpful because she said that if I can't fit my schedule in the group session classes she'd help me schedule one-on-one time with OTs working will clients individually. 

I'm a Volunteer!

My Volunteer uniform for Casa Colina

I don't have to get anymore shots! I finished all my TB test since the last week of October(:

This month I have volunteered at Casa Colina twice (11/4 & 11/13). So far all I have been doing is office work like printing and delivering documents. As of now I am helping out in the patient safety department where I work with the nurses and nurse managers, sometimes with the administration reception office. I am hoping to transfer to the Children's department by December. Once I am in that department I will be able to observe how OTs work with children. 

Almost there!

Souvenirs from the Patient Safety orientation c:

On Thursday, October 24 I went to Casa Colina for the Patient Safety Orientation. Volunteers in patient safety make rounds to specific patient rooms to resolve patient safety issues. An example of this would be if a patient is fall risk and is trying to reach something that is out-of-reach. We don't want the patient to get up because there is a very likely chance that they will fall, so as a volunteer I would do things of the sort.

I am still trying to become cleared, and to do this I need to get my second TB done, which will be done Monday. After that I plan on coming in Wednesday and start volunteering. I'm looking forward to helping out and interacting with the patients at Casa Colina.

Going to be an official volunteer

"As part of the volunteer process, you must attend an orientation. The next orientation will be Monday, October 7^th  , 2013 from 3:00pm – 4:30pm in the Tamkin Room A  located in the Administration Building (please plan to arrive on time). IT IS MANDATORY THAT YOU RSVP TO THE ORIENTATION, THERE WILL ONLY BE ROOM FOR THE FIRST 50 RSVPs. If you do not RSVP, you will not be able to attend the orientation, which is a required step to become a volunteer."

So over the summer I was just shadow at the Casa Colina facilities. Fortunately, I was one of the first 50 to RSVP and so on October 7th I will be attending a Volunteer orientation from 3:00PM-4:30PM. Michelle and Jazmin have already attended the orientation in September and have decided not to continue to volunteer there because they weren't able to attend the second orientation for patient safety which was during school hours. They explained to me that for patient safety they would have to talk to patients and ask them certain questions. If I were to do that, it would be relevant to occupational therapy because OT involves talking to patients, pretty much socializing in that sense.

Occupational Therapy exercises

While shadowing at Casa Colina I was able to observe different exercises and techniques OTs use to help patients function more independently. As well as ways patients could help themselves function better.

The first types of exercises I witnessed in the facilities were memory and scanning exercises
An OT student was working with a patient using a variety of felt shapes and a black felt background; there was a set for the OT and the patient. The OT student had the patient memorize a sequence of shapes of different colors within a certain amount of time. After counting the sequence was covered and the patient had to replicate the sequence using their set of felt shapes. This exercises was to work on the patients memory abilities which is suppose to help the patient remember the physical appearance of things or people [like a persons face].
My mentor had a different patient do a scanning and memory exercise designed to help the patient with those skills. She had set up number cards 1-10 in a room on the walls, non-numerically. The patient was instructed to go in the room and find all the numbers numerically, while being timed. The scanning and memory skills is important because it is needed when you're trying to find something, like your keys, wallet, etc.

The way my aunt explained the difference between occupational therapy and physical therapy is that physical therapy focuses more of getting a part of the body to start moving properly again whereas in occupational therapy everything has a function. An example is that a physical therapist will have a patient lift there arm 20 times until they have no problem doing it, while an occupational therapist will have a patient use that arm to reach for something or clutch on something.
My mentor was working with a patient who had trouble raising his arm who was kind of slouched/ hunched over. She analyzed the patients posture and had them sit up straight and raise their arm. When the patient did it this time, they were able to raise it all the way. As "homework" she had them try to sit up more straight which is a way patients could help themselves.

Summer Mentorship Content

Literal

1) Mentorship Log

2) Sarah Meredith OTR/L (909).596.7733 Ext. 4142

3) Questions raised during summer mentorship

• What is the difference between the different occupational therapy centers? 
• How are the exercises chosen for each of the patients?
• When are patients considered stable enough to return back to society independently?

Interpretive

4) The most important thing I learned through this experience was that there's so much to Occupational therapy. An example is when my mentor was with a patient, who had trouble working their hand, she gave them a gadget that stimulated the muscles in their arm, wrist, and hand. This showed me that in some way OT and PT (physical therapy) can crossover when working in OT.

Applied

5) My experience helped me choose a topic by showing me the different duties of and occupational therapist. I enjoyed seeing that the field can be different every day and that physical therapy can overlap into OT because I am interested in that field as well.