Houstyn Hodson

Wow. What an incredible story. I will admit that I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to reading this book because I knew that it was going to be heart-wrenching. I knew I was going to cry a lot and its hard to be motivated to read something that you know is going to put you down. But, the reality of this book is that it is true and that it happens to people in our world. HD is real and I should be aware of it and know what it means to someone that has it or to someone that is at risk for it, more than just statistics on paper. I could potentially come across someone with this disease in my lifetime, although it is rare, and I now feel more apt to be able to understand and empathize to a deeper sincerity with that potential person. There are so many things I love about this book that can be applied to any and every person on the planet. No one is promised tomorrow or the future, or even the rest of today. Everyone is at risk every single day and death is inevitable. We all know th...

Alicia Reagan "This Enabled Life" This particular blog is written by a woman named Alicia Reagan who had a life-altering diagnosis. She woke up on March 12, 2009 paralyzed from her ribs down while she was pregnant with her sixth child. Some months later, she was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis(TM) with damage at the C5-C7 vertebral level. In order to understand her diagnosis a little better, I researched the disease, as well as what to expect from a C5-C7 spinal cord injury.  TM is an inflammation of both sides of one section of the spinal cord. Due to this inflammation and swelling of the spinal cord, nerve signals are interrupted at the injury/inflammation site. This can cause pain, weakness, sensory problems, bladder and bowel dysfunction, and paralysis. Some of the potential causes of TM are infections and immune system disorders that attack body tissues. In most cases, people can recover at least partially. In severe cases, people can be left with major disab...

Model of Practice: Model of Occupational Wholeness This model of theory focuses on four dimensions of occupation which include doing, being, becoming, and belonging. It uses triangles to represent these ideas. A proportionate, or whole, triangle would include doing (in the middle) and being, becoming, and belonging in the other three corners. On the triangle, there are then two triangles: green and grey. The green triangle is the ideal situation while the grey triangle is the actual situation of the individual. Where they overlap determines the level of life participation and occupational wholeness of an individual. This model of practice (MoP) can be used on children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly. The more congruent, or overlapping, the green and grey triangles are, the more balanced and whole the life of the individual is. This model suggests that being, becoming, and belonging are the basic needs of an individual that are met by doing. This theory suggests that occup...

One major takeaway I got from today's lecture is the importance of trans-disciplinary teams in everyday practice. I have a better understanding of what this means and how to implement it in practice. I understand that it is my responsibility as an occupational therapist to ensure that client's and patient's understand more than just the services I will be providing to them. I now feel that its my responsibility to make sure they understand all facets of their diagnosis and treatments to the best of my ability. This leads into the second thing I learned today about health literacy. It is our responsibility as future practitioners in the healthcare field to ensure our patients and clients have access to and understand all material given to them and the implications. I need to be culturally sensitive and aware of things like inability to read, or just being on a lower reading level, etc. I really didn't understand the importance of my role in these things until after this ...

Mileha Soneji: Simple Hacks for Life with Parkinson's Disease I chose this topic because I personally know someone who has early-onset Parkinson's as a 36 year old male (we'll call him Mike) and I am interested in learning more about it because of him. I know two older men that also have it, but I feel that it is a different situation when you begin to have symptoms in your thirties, especially since only 4% of people are diagnosed with this disease before the age of 50. Mike has a wife and a two-year old son and is the chef at a local community college, as well as a missionary. This diagnosis affects his ability to perform and do things in the capacity he should be able to do them. I chose this specific Ted Talk because of a quote I saw in the description of the video. It read, " Technology is not always it. What we need are human-centered solutions ." This is what the speaker, Mileha Soneji, said. So, before I even listened to her talk or watched the video,...