ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

Ten years ago I posted this first entry: Welcome! Hi everyone... This is the ABC Therapeutics weblog. We are occupational therapists in Western New York. More coming soon... +++ Well it has been ten years! Sometimes the entries were patient stories.  Sometimes they were opinions on professional matters.  Sometimes they were analyses and criticisms of the systems we work in.  Sometimes the entries were pithy and academic and sometimes they were pedantic and boring. No matter what it all has been, I hope that I have been faithful to my mission of creating an ongoing experiment in a mostly open-source exploration of occupational therapy.  No ads.  No bias other than 'just me - '  straight shooting commentary from the hip of a street level practitioner.  Sometimes that resonated and sometimes it created enmity - but it is all dialogue and that is something that we all need a lot more of. No matter what, it seems appropriate to take the ...

The New York Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules (DAR) publishes the weekly State Register.  This document contains newly proposed amendments to state agency rules and provides interested parties an opportunity to comment on actions before an agency adopts each rule. The July 1, 2015 Register contains a new rule that will authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.).  There is a 45 day comment period that will soon come to a close. The Register states that  The purpose of the proposed amendment is to authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree, Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.). The proposed amendment arose from a request to confer this degree by one of the institutions of higher education in New York.  The O.T.D. degree is recognized by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) and is an authorized degree in 26 states, which include Californ...

Different people are interested in the things that I do each day, and they are interested in them for different reasons. The people who come to me asking for help with a problem are interested in whether or not I will be able to summon the requisite knowledge to address their concern (Competency Test A).  They are also interested in whether or not I am a 'nice guy who cares' while engaging in that process (Competency Test B).  As an example, this morning a mom wanted my opinion on how to solve a problem with the positioning of her child's head and neck, because of being tilted over to one side.  I have seen hundreds of cases of torticollis, but none of them are "routine" to me.  Every one of them is treated with as much seriousness and concern and diligence that I can muster. If I treated them as 'routine' then I probably wouldn't take the time to meet the parent's Competency Test B (the 'nice guy who cares' test).  Fortunately I was...