Shadowing in the Occupational Therapy Clinic:Shadowing in the Occupational Therapy Clinic:
One of my favorite aspects of Design and Innovation has been the opportunity to shadow medical professionals across a variety of disciplines. Throughout the semester, I spent time in the autism clinic, the NICU and with an occupational therapist specializing in developmental pediatrics. Although they all were interesting, the occupational therapy session was unique in its hands on level of patient engagement. Jennifer Kraus generously allowed Sanaa and I to sit in during one of her weekly sessions with a 6 year-old girl whose genetic disorder resulted in dyspraxic behavior. Although non-verbal, the girl was extremely engaged and for the most part enthusiastically willing to do all the activities Ms. Kraus planned. I know it sounds cheesy, but this experience truly expanded my understanding of how much patience and commitment these professionals bring to their work everyday. From the patient’s mother, we also learned what an enormous difference these sessions can make in a child life in a relatively short span of time. When the patient began her sessions with Ms. Kraus she preferred to travel almost exclusively my crawling and was unable to purse her lips at all. After a little less than a year, the girl we observed was able to push her self on a swing, jump over obstacles on the floor and blow pom-poms through a straw.
With regards to our particular design, it was interesting to see what aspects of the grasping motion were most difficult for the patient seemed. Although this child was not yet writing or drawing, Ms. Kraus did have her do a variety of fine motor exercises with pegs and cones. From my perspective it seemed as though the application of pressure to a specific location was particular arduous, this understandably is a skill necessary for writing. After the session, Ms. Kraus was generous enough to give us even more of her time and answer all our questions about her experience with dyspraxia. She, like others we found on the Internet, expressed discontent with the grips and pencils available on the current market. She as of now usually just opts to tell children to switch to computers early on. Since we were hoping our design would eventually give children access to artistic and athletic hobbies previously inaccessible to them, we felt that it would still be able to serve a purpose computers could not.
BME Design 