OT 537 Media Project - Toothpicks

For this assignment, we were given a household object/material and a case study. We had to use our object in an innovated way to help improve our client’s occupational performance. I was assigned toothpicks and a client named Joe who is 22 and diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis (TM). TM an inflammation of both sides of one section of the spinal cord that causes damage to the myelin. This can cause sharp pain in the lower back, arms, legs, and around your chest or abdomen, abnormal sensations such as numbness or tingling, weakness or paralysis in your legs, and bladder or bowel problems.           

When first reading over Joe’s case, I was pretty stumped on how I could help him. I began to think to myself “what can OT do to help him become more independent so that he isn’t relying on so much assistance”. That’s when it hit me that Joe needs full assistance with lower body dressing. Learning how to dress himself will allow him to be more independent and rely less on his parents or girlfriend to help him. I am sure being 22 years old, nobody really wants some else getting them dress, therefore this is most likely a meaningful task to him as it will allow him to become more independent. I also think this will help him gain self-confidence as he plans to propose to his girlfriend soon. I decided to adapt my toothpicks and use them as an intervention to help Joe work towards lower body dressing. I taped about 10 toothpicks together and added Velcro around the toothpicks and on random parts of both pant legs. My thought process was that, when sitting up in bed, Joe can reach forward and grab the toothpicks off the pants and transfer it to the other pant leg. This motion is similar to the one he would be doing when he is pulling up his pants. Before this assignment, I really only thought of using adaptive equipment to work on lower body dressing. After doing some research on TM, I learned that most people have at least a partial recovery and recover within the first three months. Increasing his mobility will be more beneficial to Joe in the future. This assignment required me to become really creative and think outside of the box. Everyday household items can be extremely useful and versatile in occupational therapy. Going forward, I will think about items at home most people have easy access to, so that they can carryover what they do at therapy at home.