When a rookie softball player from the northeast dove head first into 2nd base, she never imagined it being her last time on the field. Even after enduring a 6 hour surgery to fuse vertebrae back together, she still knew she was going to play again one day. How, you might ask? With the hope she gets from therapy each day.
As a young OT student and a former softball player myself, I can see both the giving and receiving ends of this article published in Boston in 2015. It highlights the story of Bella Picard, a softball star who suffers from what many believe would be a career ending injury. When asked if she thinks she will ever play again, she exclaims, "oh yes, this is not how i'm going to live. I know that." Bella states that she enjoys going to 5 hours of physical therapy and occupational therapy each day and that it "feels like practice". While Bella's own motivation for herself stems from wanting to hold a bat in her hand again, it goes without saying that her therapists are also some of her biggest motivators. Her OT states how hard of a worker she is and how she is up for anything.
So, how exactly does this portray the field of occupational therapy to others? When I read this article, I read into the motivators we, as OTs, can be. I read into the job that might not always be as easy if we had a client who was not as willing to work as hard as Bella. I read into the diversity of interventions that go into place such as reaching, grasping, and using a Wii gaming console as part of rehab. From the outside looking in, I wonder how inspirational Bella would be to other softball players if she did not have the therapists rallying behind her every improvement. All these things show that although going through OT exercises as a patient can be challenging; OTs stand to make it beneficial, to make it fun, and to make it life-changing.
The link to the article: http://www.telegram.com/article/20150531/NEWS/150539873
As a young OT student and a former softball player myself, I can see both the giving and receiving ends of this article published in Boston in 2015. It highlights the story of Bella Picard, a softball star who suffers from what many believe would be a career ending injury. When asked if she thinks she will ever play again, she exclaims, "oh yes, this is not how i'm going to live. I know that." Bella states that she enjoys going to 5 hours of physical therapy and occupational therapy each day and that it "feels like practice". While Bella's own motivation for herself stems from wanting to hold a bat in her hand again, it goes without saying that her therapists are also some of her biggest motivators. Her OT states how hard of a worker she is and how she is up for anything.
So, how exactly does this portray the field of occupational therapy to others? When I read this article, I read into the motivators we, as OTs, can be. I read into the job that might not always be as easy if we had a client who was not as willing to work as hard as Bella. I read into the diversity of interventions that go into place such as reaching, grasping, and using a Wii gaming console as part of rehab. From the outside looking in, I wonder how inspirational Bella would be to other softball players if she did not have the therapists rallying behind her every improvement. All these things show that although going through OT exercises as a patient can be challenging; OTs stand to make it beneficial, to make it fun, and to make it life-changing.
The link to the article: http://www.telegram.com/article/20150531/NEWS/150539873
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