Student Blog

The Fault in Our Stars Creates the Perfect Alignment of Health Care Collaboration ⟩
October 15, 2015, by Rashelle

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

As mentioned in my post before, one of the most unique things about USC is the opportunity to learn from an interdisciplinary team. This week I went to a movie screening of The Fault in Our Stars at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. After the movie viewing there was an interdisciplinary panel led by the Norris Medical Library, consisting of a Medical Doctor (MD), Registered Nurse (RN), Physical Therapist (PT) and Occupational Therapist (OT), whom all have had experience working with adolescent and young adults (AYA) diagnosed with cancer.

These health professionals answered questions regarding the movie, shared myth busters, elaborated upon roles of the hospital staff in the movie, and described the lessons they’ve learned from their firsthand experiences working with this population. The USC faculty and staff also spoke about the differences in treatment approaches when working with AYA, in comparison to children or older adults. This section of the discussion hit home for me in particular, due to my passion for working with AYA in their difficult transitions acquiring new roles and forming individual identities. While the movie itself turned on a faucet of emotions and tears, the panel afterward taught me how to cope with the emotional hardships that may come with working so closely with AYA diagnosed with cancer. This heartwarming, encouraging and uplifting event demonstrated the capcity of each profession to distinctively contribute to the alignment of the stars, in order to facilitate the greatest recovery for all patients.

Here is a picture of a few occupational therapy students surrounding Dr. Caryn Roach, the occupational therapy representative in the panel. How occupational therapists contribute in particular to this health care team, is by ensuring that each patient is able to participate, to their fullest capacity, in activities that are meaningful to them — may it be reading a book, feeding themselves, showering independently, socializing with their friends or traveling to Amsterdam with a significant other to meet one’s favorite author, Van Houten — occupational therapists find the supports, educate patients on adaptive devices, implement energy conservation techniques, strengthen muscles and increase ranges of motion to provide a greater range of accessibiility and quality of life for the patient.

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There’s No Health Without Mental Health ⟩
October 9, 2015, by Jodie

Community Getting Involved

On Saturday, October 3rd, I participated in the 2015 NAMIWalks LA with a bunch of my classmates as “Team Occupational Therapy,” led by one of our clinical faculty members, Dr. Delgado! NAMI stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the overall purpose of NAMI is to change how Americans view persons with metal illness. NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

All of the attendees met at Grand Park early in the morning for a pre-walk celebration and then we began our walk around Downtown Los Angeles to raise public awareness of mental illness and to display our support for people affected by mental illness. This was a very fun, 5k walk that took about 2 hours to complete. As I am currently in the Mental Health immersion in the program, this walk was very meaningful to me because I have the opportunity to work very closely with persons affected by mental illness at my Level I fieldwork site at Century Villages at Cabrillo. I am very committed to supporting NAMI in educating, advocating and increasing public awareness of how important mental health is. As a team, I am so happy to announce that we were able to raise over $2,000 in support of NAMI.

If you would like to learn more about NAMI, or to find out about more local NAMI events going on near you, check out their website at nami.org.

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Silly OTs . . . Peds are for Kids! ⟩
October 8, 2015, by Joe

Classes What are OS/OT?

This week Pediatrics has focused on Sensory Integration, which basically looks at how a child’s sensory processing relates to their motor planning and ability to engage in occupation. Sensory Integration, or “SI”, was started by USC’s own A. Jean Ayres, who was part of the first OT class to graduate from USC in 1945!

When I first looked into OT, I found this to be one of the most fascinating specialty areas . . . and today, I also found out that it can be super fun!

In lab, we got to use a variety of the tools & equipment needed for effective Sensory Integration treatment.

It might look like we’re playing in a kids’ gym or maybe training for the circus, but we use these tools to provide important sensory experiences for children with sensory processing disorders (which is common for children with Autism, for instance). The various types of swings, mats, and sensory “toys” give us fun, playful ways to target a child’s sensory systems related to touch, movement in space, & bodily awareness. Through this type of targeted therapy, we aim to help develop a child’s neurological systems to better process information from the environment to support their engagement in activities, such as play and daily living.

You can read up more on Sensory Integration.

Now I’m off to my next fun occupation!

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Trojan Pride ⟩
October 4, 2015, by Jodie

Getting Involved

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the 14th Annual OTAC Afternoon Tea with a Scholar, held at the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy Center for Occupation and Lifestyle Redesign. This event was coordinated by one of our clinical faculty members, Celso Delgado Jr., OTD, OTR/L, who currently serves as our Region 2 Director for OTAC.

As the second year OTAC Student Delegate for USC, it is part of my responsibilities to assist Dr. Delgado with Region 2 events. Seen in this picture with me are Dr. Delgado and our first year OTAC Student Delgate, Erwin Borja.

The keynote speaker at this year’s event was Shawn Roll, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, who is an assistant professor here in our division. Dr. Roll presented on the topic of “Innovative Approaches to Advancing Occupational Performance in Individuals with Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorders”. This was such an informative presentation that really captivated everyone’s attention and highlighted Dr. Roll’s breadth of knowledge and experience.

As I had the opportunity to mingle with fellow attendees at this event, it struck me just how many of our alumni go on to fulfill leadership roles within not only OTAC, but AOTA as well. I feel extremely honored and inspired to be surrounded by such influential faculty members and practitioners here at USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy!

These are just a few of the many inspiring leaders of our state association, OTAC (many of whom are USC OT alumni! 😊).

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An Autumnal Occupation ⟩
October 4, 2015, by Heather

Life Hacks

The Fall season is absolutely my favorite time of year. It reminds me of the times when my grandma and I would partake in one of our favorite occupations: making pomegranate jelly.

During October and November, I would go over to her house almost every weekend to make our wonderful creation. The process was long, yet meditative. First, we would pick the pomegranates off of the tree. Bags and bags of them. Then, we would sit for 2-3 hours seeding the pomegranates in tubs of water. By doing this in water, the seeds were prone to loosen and break out of their membrane without squirting everywhere. From here, my grandma would juice the seeds to make pomegranate juice (remember, this was before POM juice was a thing). The rest of the process involved adding sugar, pectin, and acid to balance out the thickening action of the pectin. The sugar was integral to the recipe because it increased the volume of the juice, sweetened it, and helped to prevent the jelly from fermenting. The last step was to pour the jelly concoction into sanitized Mason Jars, stir the contents to eliminate air bubbles, and skim the foam off the surface.

Grandma always told me that pomegranates were healthy, but I never quite understood why. Just recently, I did some research to find out their health benefits. Some of the interesting facts that I discovered were that pomegranates contain high levels of vitamin C and many types of antioxidants, namely 3: anthocyanidins: cyaniding, delphinidin, and pelargonidin. The polyphenol context is 3X the amount found in green tea and red wine. Studies show that they are directly related to the prevention of cancer and heart disease prevention

The occupation of making pomegranate jelly has been very important to me throughout my youth and young adulthood. After my grandma passed away, my mom and I have continued to engage in the ritual every Fall season. I believe that every life has meaningful occupations like this one, and that it is worthy task to continue practicing them throughout our lives.

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