occupational therapy

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[upbeat music] Welcome to the OT Download, from practice to podcast.

This is where we unpack everything you didn't know you needed to know about occupational therapy.

Whether you're an OT, an OTA, a student, or simply curious, this is your place to explore the real stories, challenges, and opportunities shaping our profession.

So if you're ready for insights, stories, and a no-nonsense take on occupational therapy, this is your download.

Let's get into it.

Hello, and welcome to the OT Download.

My name is Gabby.

So let's backtrack and try and get a different step that is sort of parallel to that might help, uh, prepare your, your head, your brain better to get back to what we were actually trying to do, if that is the case.

So I, I've, I've seen a lot of sort of OT'ing myself through this process as well as the content that I'm reading.

Um, but this, this concept of novelty too, um, i- is pretty...

You'll, you'll see this a lot if you've ever read, um, the, the USC's Well Elderly study.

I've de-identified it since what matters is how it works and nobody in particular.

A practitioner may ask whether OTs can perform digital stimulation as part of a bowel program for a client with a spinal cord injury.

She's already checked her state practice act and AOTA materials, found nothing explicit either way, and is asking before she proceeds.

That's exactly what a careful clinician should do.

Scope arguments sound abstract until you watch one land on an actual client.

Here are four questions I see coming up again and again, and each one sits at a different layer.

Can OTs address bowel and bladder management after a spinal cord injury? This is the question from the opening.

Our own practice framework names toileting and toilet hygiene among the activities of daily living.

Talk to me about that.

Like, how did your occupational therapy background change the way you then saw and understood behavior and what's happening underneath it?

Okay, so firstly, thanks for having me on today.

And I allowing me to share my knowledge and thoughts and journey with your audience.

So I started out in 2009.

I graduated Towson University as an occupational therapist, and my heart is still there.

I love occupational therapy.

It's such a great field with such creative minds, very open hearts.

Alongside her clinical work, Aoife has completed postgraduate training in psychotherapy, which really enriches her holistic approach to supporting individuals and families during some of the most challenging moments of their lives.

We're also delighted to say that Aoife has recently moved into a senior full-time OT role dedicated to the Northwest Hospice, where she's a huge asset to the team and to the community that we serve.

Aoife, it's lovely to see you.

Very grateful to have the invite here today, Tara.

It's great to have the opportunity, I suppose, to outline the role of an occupational therapist, but I suppose more specifically to talk about my work as an OT in a palliative care setting and within the inpatient unit here in Northwest Hospice.

So very grateful to be here, Tara.

Thank you.

Gorgeous.

Yeah.

I, another example of, um, how behavioral health providers and occupational therapists can kind of collaborate or kind of compliment each other's services is on the garrison side when we have now some military treatment facilities will have outpatient behavioral health occupational therapy.

It's a little bit less common.

But Walter Reed, for example, there's a like a subclinic of OT that specifically addresses behavioral health and some traumatic brain injury related functional Um, issues and what I've done in the past in that setting, um, that has kind of really like directly worked with the behavioral health providers and translated those treatments is through, um, really like helping the the patient or the service member put into functional practice what they're working on with their behavioral health providers so let's say it's somebody who has been doing some trauma processing um or emdr and they are one of their functional goals for occupational therapy is to be able to go to the grocery store um with decreased level of anxiety or distress.

And so what we'll do is I'll ask them or even their behavioral health provider sometimes to talk through what their subjective unit of distress is when they're finding themselves in certain situations that are triggering anxiety.

And we'll start out in the occupational therapy clinic where it's kind of a more controlled environment.

Maybe they're walking through the clinic and noticing some things going on over here that are very noisy or loud, whatever.

And once they get to a point where they are able to tolerate that level of stimulation and um you know potential anxiety then they we would graduate to walking I don't know if anybody's ever been to Walter Reed um but it's like a very

Hao,

your occupational therapist, and welcome to OT Conversations.

In this talk, I would like us to have a discussion about gender service.

so this is very interesting isn't it gender service and from what i understand there was there is a movement nationally around gender service and at the time it was largely medically led and from what i gather people go into the area go into the clinic and quite quickly children or teenagers sometimes are being provided with medical services including early medical interventions such as hormone treatment among many other things and then there was this cast report there was an investigation or review of it and there was a question on what would have been the best thing to do for a situation like this.

Visit coxisnowspectrum.com for more details.

And you will need to understand the content of thought of the person you'll need to understand the emotional world of that person you need to understand internal conflict if there's any you know development uncertainty formulation absolutely no question about it so psychology yes okay but then it let us come to occupational therapy Now, if we talk about occupational therapy, where do we fall and where do we fit in this area? Now, this is where it becomes very, very interesting because if you think about occupation and you think about something like the model of human occupation.

As OTs, we believe that a person is driven by values, interest, motivation, personal causation.

And that is exactly one of the biggest area that is affected, or at least one of the central areas of interest in gender service.

My guest today is Dr. Keri Porter, an occupational therapist, pelvic floor specialist, and founder of the Mended Mother OT, an educational health and wellness company based in South Central Alaska.

Dedicated to helping to take the guesswork out of pregnancy and postpartum healing, she specializes in restorative movement, core stability, and holistic pelvic health to empower women throughout every stage of motherhood.

Through her clinical practice and educational programs, Dr. Keri Porter helps mothers rebuild strength, regain confidence, and reclaim their physical well-being so they can thrive in motherhood, not just survive it.

Let's go

check it out.

New and seasoned OTs are finding their calling in pelvic health.

After all, what's more ADL than sex, peeing, and poop? But here's the question.

What does it take to become a successful, fulfilled, and thriving OT in pelvic health? How do you go from beginner to seasoned and everything in between? Those are the questions, and this podcast will give you the answers.