![\"what-did-you-overlook-today\"](\"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/What-did-you-overlook-today-300x169.jpg\")
I sat in my car scanning my notes for my next patient. \u201cDorothy\u201d was a 75 year old woman with severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. While this would be my first visit, she had a long history of receiving in-home OT and PT visits as her condition progressed. At her door, I knocked and waited, and then knocked again. Had I heard a voice? Sure enough, I heard a women call out that the door was open and I could come right in.<\/p>\n
My patient stood about 5 feet back from the door while greeting me and confirming that I was her new occupational therapist. We settled down at the kitchen table to start my assessment. I went through my standard list of questions and an evaluation of her capacity for ADL\u2019s. As we discussed my plan for her therapy, I was bothered by something. You know the feeling, your intuition tells you something is wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it. The time ended, but I still hadn\u2019t figured out what was bothering me. I sighed and packed up knowing it would come to me sooner or later.<\/p>\n
As I walked to the door, I realized what was wrong. I turned to Dorothy and asked her why she had called to me rather than opening the door for me. She replied matter-of-factly that she couldn’t open the door. I asked how she got in and out of her apartment. My patient, without the ability to open her only door, was a prisoner in her own home. Dorothy had to call a neighbor or two or three, until she found someone that had a minute to come and open the door. I asked her if this was a recent problem and it turned out that in the ten years she had lived in the apartment, Dorothy had never been able to open her own door.
\n<\/p>\n
I asked if she could unlock the door and turn the knob. That was not the problem; she could manage both. The problem was physically pulling the door open. As I tried the door, I found that I even needed to brace myself to tug it open. The door wasn’t all that heavy once it was open, so what was the issue? I discovered the magnetic seal around the door was extraordinarily strong and took more strength than my patient had to break that seal.<\/p>\n
I was determined to solve this problem for my patient that day, so I hurried down to my car to see what I had in my trunk of supplies. I returned a few minutes later with an ordinary roll of masking tape. I carefully worked my way around the seal covering about a quarter of the surface with the masking tape. Dorothy gave it a try, but still wasn’t able to open the door. I make another pass around the seal; this time covering about half of the seal\u2019s surface. Trying again, Dorothy opened her front door by herself for the first time in 10 years! Of course the door had a magnetic seal as a fire precaution. So before I left the apartment complex, I asked the apartment manager to inspect the door and followed up with a call to the local fire station. Both agreed that the seal was still adequate.<\/p>\n
My advice to all my fellow OTs\u2026.<\/p>\n
Don’t forget the big picture.<\/b> I know as an OT providing in-home care my schedule could be incredible tight, and I had much to accomplish in my allotted time. When on a tight schedule, I tended to focus on the task at hand; however, it is important that as OT\u2019s that we step back and really observe the patient\u2019s environment.<\/p>\n
Don’t assume because the patient has had multiple courses of therapy that all her needs have been fully identified.<\/b> Sometimes when you are coming behind another therapist, you assume the first assessment is complete and accurate. But patients change and even the best OT can overlook a need, so try start each visit without any preconceived ideas.<\/p>\n
Don’t forget to load your trunk with tools to fuel your creativity.<\/b> As an OT in home health, my trunk was full of gadgets and tools, so make sure yours is too! I could talk on this topic forever and plan to in an upcoming blog, but for now make sure you add masking tape to your trunk of tools!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I sat in my car scanning my notes for my next patient. \u201cDorothy\u201d was a 75 year old woman with severe Rheumatoid Arthritis. While this would be my first visit, she had a long history of receiving in-home OT and PT visits as her condition progressed. At her door, I…<\/p>\n Read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-love-ot"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/What-did-you-overlook-today.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6748"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6758,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6748\/revisions\/6758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottoolkit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}