Hi, everybody. This is Christina, "The AmputeeOT". In this video
I'm going to talk about the role that occupational therapy can play in rehabilitation after amputation.
I'm surprised at how frequently people ask me what the, "OT" in my name, "AmputeeOT" stands for.
The OT in AmputeeOT stands for Occupational Therapists.
Not a lot of people know what an
Occupational Therapist is in fact, even the people who are my clients who come to me to receive
Occupational Therapy, don't always know what Occupational Therapy is. They often will ask me things like,
Why would I need occupational therapy?
I'm 85 and I don't have a job. While some occupational therapists work with employment
and people who are trying to return to work... most occupational therapists,
that's not their main focus in their practice, so
Occupational therapy does not stand for return to work therapy. All right,
so what is Occupational Therapy? If you ask the American Occupational Therapy Association they will say,
"In its simplest terms,
Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Assistants help people across the lifespan
participate in the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of everyday activities.
Common Occupational Therapy interventions include helping children with disabilities to participate fully in school and social situations,
helping people recovering from injury to regain skills, and providing supports for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive
changes". However if somebody were to ask me in an elevator what I do is an occupational therapist
or ask me what occupational therapy is, I wouldn't read off that roped
definition because that definition doesn't really take into account a lot of things and to be honest it kind of doesn't really explain a whole
lot either.
Occupational Therapists typically work with people with disabilities
or people with injuries or people with cognitive delays or some type of
impairment that is hindering their ability to perform
daily activities or the activities that are important to them. So for example, an Occupational Therapist might help a person who's
become recently injured learn how to dress themselves if they can no longer dress themselves because of their injury. We might work with companies to
increase ergonomics, so that people can avoid injuries. A lot of Occupational Therapists work in the school system with kids with different
types of disabilities such as Autism,
Cerebral Palsy or Spina Bifida.
We work with neonatal patients and their families to help them figure out how to take care of their new baby
and we specifically use everyday activities in a therapeutic context. So, for example, where as a
Physical Therapist might work on strengthening and range of motion by doing different types of exercises,
we might work on strengthening and range of motion by getting in the kitchen and putting the dishes away. The goal of
Occupational Therapy is to help people be able to do the things that occupy their time, so that's where the phrase,
"Occupational" comes from in "Occupational Therapy".
I primarily work with people who use manual wheelchairs for my research, and for my clinical work
I work in Home Health. Home Health Occupational Therapists primarily work with
modifying the environment to make it easier or safer for people, or helping them work on things like getting in the shower,
Figuring out how to get dressed, or cook or clean
independently... those kinds of things... and we like to say that we, "Put the 'fun' in functional". Some amputees would really benefit from
Occupational Therapy, and there are many ways in which Occupational Therapists can help amputees
learn to regain lost function and learn to be more independent in their lives after their
amputation. Very early on in the process of amputation like say, within the first week or two after a person gets an amputation, an
Occupational Therapist can help with
figuring out how that person is going to get dressed,
transfer to their wheelchair, transfer to the toilet or the commode, get in the shower,
and put on any of the devices that are used to assist them in
rehabilitating their amputations such as sub triggers or stump socks? If an amputee gets the prosthesis, then a
Occupational Therapist can help them with figuring out how to get the prosthesis on if they're having
difficulty getting it on. We can also work on things like energy conservation. A lot of amputees,
especially above-knee amputees -and especially especially double above-knee amputees or anybody who's higher than that- have a lot of difficulty with
being able to do the things they want to do without running out of energy.
So we might work on energy conservation techniques
and those are techniques that you use to conserve energy when you're doing daily tasks
So that you can complete the task without running out of energy.
Another way in which
Occupational Therapists can really help amputees, is with upper Extremity amputees.
This is a huge area for Occupational Therapists. If you're a new amputee and you've just gotten a new Prosthesis
and it's an Upper Extremity Prosthesis, or if you've been an amputee for a while but you're getting any type of prosthesis,
Occupational Therapists can really help with
fine-tuning the skills that you have with your Prosthesis
so you can make it more functional. For example, Occupational Therapists might work on things like picking up
objects of different sizes and shapes and densities and putting them into certain locations, they might work on
figuring out how to hold a pencil or a writing utensil. Now
it's one thing to get your new Upper Extremity Prosthesis and go home and try to put away your dishes with it.
It's kind of scary and intimidating, but it's a whole other thing to do it in a safe, controlled environment
where you have somebody who's an Occupational Therapist who can help you do those things
so that you can learn how to do them in a safe way
and in a way where you will be confident and independent in being able to use your prosthesis... and we can even work on
problem-solving tasks such as remembering to take your
clothing with you when you go take a shower so that when you get out of the shower you'll have it
and you won't have to go through the house nude,
unsafe on slippery floors without your clothing.
I feel like me being an Occupational Therapist really gave me a different insight into what it was like to be an amputee
because I had spent a lot of time with amputees and I also
understood that
function was the most important thing to me,
so I didn't care if I didn't have a foot. What I cared about is being able to
return to a normal life,
being able to go back to being active and I knew because of that, that if that's what I really wanted then
amputation would probably be the right choice for me. Also because of my experience with Assistive Technology,
with wheelchairs and other devices that people use to assist them in leading more functional lives,
I was totally open to the idea of needing a device that would assist me in leading a more functional life and I had no
problem with choosing that. It wasn't something that is uncomfortable for me. To me, using an Assistive Device
is basically just a slightly different way of living.
It's pretty much normal everyday for me, and so it wasn't anything that really scared me. By the way,
I actually have a doctoral degree in Occupational Therapy, so I'm Dr. Stephens to you guys. No, just kidding!
Actually I'm a little bit uncomfortable with people calling me, Dr. Stevens. To me
it seems overly formal and weird, but that's who I am and I earned it, I suppose.
Okay, everybody that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you have any questions,
you can leave them in the comment section below. You can subscribe if you like, I've got new videos every Wednesday.
You can follow me on Facebook. That's facebook.com/amputeeot
and see you later, bye!