OT Digest

This episode's guest is Dr. Turquessa Francis OTR, EdD who is the assistant director at the University of Buffalo and the writer behind the OT Research Corner blog. Turquessa and I discuss the various types of activities that make up evidence-based practice and adjusting mindsets around some of the barriers that are currently seen when attempting to be an evidence-based practitioner and what that actually means. Turquessa gives some great tips and tricks for how to incorporate these practices into your daily routines.

Burnout is a major issue among healthcare professionals even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Healthcare professionals know this is a problem but what interventions are being studied to help. I give a snapshot of some studies out there right now that are showing promising results for preventing and healing burnout.

Being an evidence-based practitioner is not a step-by-step checklist. It involves a blending of a lot of different reasoning and research searching into a beautiful mix. In this solo episode, I go into some areas to consider when providing evidence-based care and what that actually looks like with some practical examples. Also, I discuss the differences between evidence-based practice, practice-based evidence, and evidence-informed practice.

On episode 13, Dr. Hiba Zafran, an occupational therapist and psychotherapist, talks about her experience with working alongside individuals from indigenous communities in Canada and finding how OTs fit into that role. We also discuss the unique strategies to support this population that strays away from the medical model and focuses on listening first and providing cultural safety, no matter what setting we are in.

Dr. Juleen Rodakowski, OTD, MS, OTR/L, FAOTAis a researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She focuses on community-based rehabilitation for older adults with cognitive decline. Her work focuses on using strategy training and assessing IADLS in order to properly support this population in multiple settings as an occupational therapist.

There's a lot of information out there: articles, podcasts, books, courses, etc. How can we, as OT practitioners, quickly find the information we need in the era of information overload in order to serve our clients with the best possible care? Listen in with some tips and tricks in this solo episode with Katie Caspero.

For this episode, I review a project I worked on alongside my co-worker Kaitlyn Goerl MOT, OTR/L. We discuss pediatric CIMT and the benefits of pairing it alongside other multidisciplinary intensive services. We discuss how to implement p-CIMT into your own practice and whether it is feasible back on feedback from parents.

Cheri Dotterer is also known as the Dysgraphia Consultant and the author of the Handwriting Brain-Body Disconnect. She has recently started working on her own research interests specific to handwriting and discusses new insights she's found since publishing her book.

This episode highlights a newly developed training program for Direct Support Professionals working in Community-based programs entitled EMPOWER by Dr. Amy Castagnino. I interview her about the progress of developing the program, why it is important to her, and how others can get involved in doing something similar for their communities.

Rachelle Brick MSOT, OTR/L is a 4th year PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh that is passionate about cancer research. In this episode, she discusses the current work of identifying the impact of cognition for cancer rehab as well as new interventions to support better outcomes for older adult survivors of cancer.