AngelillOT: A Blog

        For my final neuro note, I decided to begin by searching Netflix without a set concentration.  I decided to watch My Beautiful Broken Brain, starring and co-directed by Lotje Sodderland, a young woman whose life was turned upside down when she had a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 34.  One of the reasons I chose to watch this documentary was because of the type of stroke she had.  Earlier this semester I learned about cerebrovascular accidents.  I was able to identify her stroke as hemorrhagic before revisiting my notes.  Lotje was especially interesting to me since hemorrhagic strokes only account for about 13% of  strokes, and are more fatal.  I was immediately attracted when the film started with her recount while having the stroke.  I was surprised at the detail of her description as she talked of first feeling an excruciating headache and then acknowledging that she was unable to talk.  She recalls crazy colo...

In my Neurological Aspects of Occupational Performance class, I was given the opportunity to attend a Memphis Rollin' Grizzlies practice.  This is a wheelchair basketball team that is sponsored by the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team.  They are a division I team in the NWBA (National Wheelchair Basketball Association).  Their coach, who was also in a wheelchair, came up to our class and educated us on the game before they began practice.  The team was made up of men of different sizes, ages, and race.  One of the players even played for his college team under a full scholarship as well.  Some of the men out there were able to ambulate properly without a wheelchair, but still got in one to play.  On the other end, one of the players was a double lower extremity amputee.  When the coach told us they would play for an hour, I was in disbelief that they would be able to perform for such a long period of time.  I was amazed at the amount of upper...

For my media project, I was instructed to turn a household item into a meaningful intervention for an individual with a specific diagnosis made up by my professor.  The item I was randomly assigned to was a Q-tip.  The diagnosis I was paired with involved a man named Craig with a C5 complete spinal cord injury.  I took his demographics, employment, and family life into consideration as I constructed a task that would be occupation-centered to relate to his job as the owner of a CD, DVD, and tape shop.  Also, I had to take into consideration that Craig would be starting OT with a halo vest.  This would limit movement of his head and neck.  Before beginning my project, I was very nervous about how I was supposed to make such a small item useable by a person with no hand or finger strength.  I am thankful that I learned how to make a universal cuff with velcro and duct tape earlier in this course.  The cuff is an important component of my project, ...