ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

I visited the grave of my great-grandfather in Pennsylvania last summer. I had only been there once before, as a child on a trip with my family, and I realized how little I knew about him. He immigrated to the United States with nothing, worked in a railroad foundry, and died at a very early age during the influenza epidemic. That is nearly all I know. When I arrived at the gravesite, I found a stone cross—once the top of his headstone—lying broken on the ground. It struck me then how fragile memory is, how easily the markers of a life can be worn away or broken over time. After my great-grandfather's death, the family moved to New York where my grandfather grew up. Following in his father’s footsteps, he worked for the railroad, but while he lived longer than his father, his life was still cut short at a relatively young age. I know some things about him—his love of family, of God, of bowling—but the stories are fragmented, incomplete. He died just two weeks after I was born, so I...

When I bought a vintage Narragansett beer tray on eBay, I thought I was just adding to my collection. But when the seller sent me a heartfelt note about how his mother kept that tray on her mantle for many years, I realized I had done something more—I had brought a piece of someone's past back home. That moment reinforced a deeper truth: collecting isn’t just about the things. It’s about the stories, the connections, and the shared history that comes with them. A similar thing happened with a Schreiber’s Manru Beer tray—a beautiful piece of Buffalo brewing history. The seller reached out, telling me that his father had kept it in his workshop down in Texas, and it had always been a meaningful part of his space. The seller was so happy to send it back to the Buffalo area, knowing that it was going to someone who would appreciate its history. That sense of belonging, of an object being right where it should be, is something I’ve seen time and again in collecting. Then, today, I had a...

Lately, the conversation around gender in athletics, education, and therapy has gotten a lot more complicated. Questions about fairness, biology, and statistical interpretation are at the heart of some heated debates—whether it's about competitive advantage in sports or access to essential services like therapy. While these issues might seem separate, they both hinge on a common problem: how statistics are used (or misused) to justify decisions. I recently came across a post from an athlete who was assigned male at birth but is now competing in women’s sports. This issue connects directly to occupational therapy because it highlights how statistical reasoning—whether in competition or clinical settings—can shape real-world opportunities. The athlete argued that their transition had led to an ‘equitable’ change in performance by comparing their high school results in men’s competitions to their current college results in women’s competitions. The key claim? Their relative standing w...