Dr. Remy Hadley's Story of Huntington's Disease

Dr. Remy Hadley's mother and brother both previously died from Huntington's disease. She finally decided that it was time to get tested, and then found out that she too had the gene for the disease. Because Huntington's is a genetic disease, there was a very high chance for a positive test. A year later, Remy began noticing symptoms, beginning with tremors in her hands. Dr. Hadley is a 35 year old physician, which is one of her major occupations. Because of this, documentation is very important to her, and the tremors in her hands are keeping her from efficiently doing this. Dr. Hadley was referred to OT in order to maintain independence in her ADLs, such as feeding and drinking without spilling his food and drink. Adaptive equipment such as weighted utensils and cups with lids and a straw would be helpful. As a physical, Dr. Hadley finds her independence to be crucial, and I think OT would be beneficial for her case. Although this is a highly progressive disease, OT can try to keep her as well as possible for the remainder of her time.

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Pat Summitt's Battle with Dementia

Pat Summitt is well-known for being an exceptional basketball coach for the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, as well as being a coach for the women's USA olympic team. In 2010, Pat began showing subtle signs of dementia, but she ignored the signs for another year. In 2011, she was diagnosed at age 59 with early-onset dementia. She went to Mayo Clinic when she began experiencing symptoms including showing up to a game while leaving her car running and calling the wrong terms during the game. She also reported signs such as feeling disoriented when waking up in the morning. She reported that numbers were especially difficult to understand and deal with at this point. After her diagnosis, Pat was determined to continue coaching at UTK; however, after about a year she was encouraged to retire from her position as head coach. She then started the Pat Summitt Foundation to raise money and awareness for research about early-onset dementia. During the middle stages of de...

Journal Article Review

The article I chose to review was titled The Benefits of Group Occupational Therapy for Patients With Parkinson’s Disease. I found this article through AJOT, and chose it because I am very interested in Parkinson's Disease interventions. This study looked at how progressive physical symptoms of Parkinson's disease affect participation in activities of daily living. The aim of the study was to see whether a group rehab program using an OT approach specifically designed for IPD, in association with ideal medical management, could maintain the functional status of these patients. A two group experimental design was used in this study. Individuals with Idiopathic Parkinson's disease were randomly assigned to either an experimental group receiving group occupational therapy intervention, or a control group receiving only medicinal treatment. Immediately after randomization, the experimental group received 10 sessions of group occupational therapy....

Brain Injuries and Heartbreaks

In today's class we began to learn about traumatic and non-traumatic brain injuries. Brain injuries can be caused by a variety of factors and can affect a victim in numerous ways. It can be very difficult to work with a brain injury patient because oftentimes they do not show physical symptoms, but instead emotional, social, and/or cognitive symptoms. It is fascinating to me how a brain injury can completely change a person's personality, however; this is what also makes this type of injury most traumatic for the loved ones of the victim. When you have a loved one who has suffered from a brain injury, it is possible that he or she is altogether not the same person you have always known. Though physically they may look the same, they are not emotionally or socially the person you loved before. We listened to a podcast before class about a nurse named Dawn who was attacked by a hospital patient, resulting in a TBI. The would lash out in frustrating situations and also had terribl...

Camille Vaughn OT 425

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