Occupational Therapy Courses

Video Runtime: 76 Minutes, Learning Assessments: 36 Minutes

This course provides strategies for occupational therapists to effectively support students with sensory needs and increase their overall participation and performance in school. The course covers the important differences between occupational therapy in the school setting versus the clinical setting for children with sensory needs, and defines measurable school-based outcomes for students and other stakeholders as a result of occupational therapy intervention.

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Clinical reasoning for pediatric occupational therapists should be informed by neuroscience, developmental theory, occupational science, and clinical practice, including tacit clinical knowledge - all rich sources of evidence and inspiration. However, combining all of these sources of information into a format useful for in-the-moment clinical use can be daunting. In this course, you will be introduced to a clinical reasoning framework for combining sensory, affective, and motor processing into a relationship-based model to allow therapists to create and implement effect treatment plans as well as monitor progress. The aim of the clinical reasoning process is to help the therapist identify the underlying issues and provide comprehensive treatment and supports while building targeted skills in order to shift the adaptive functioning of the client/child. The clinical reasoning format lends itself as a guide to treatment to address the most common clusters of difficulties/diagnostic conditions seen by pediatric occupational therapists. This course will provide theory and practical information for enhancing OT clinical work with children with a broad range of neurodevelopmental conditions including those categorized as having sensory integrative difficulties or "SPD" concerns. Learning sound clinical reasoning allows the therapist to commit to excellence in their evidence-based approach to treatment and establishes the OT as a strong member of a multidisciplinary team.

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Eating and drinking are essential for living and for many patients and families, the continued ability to eat and drink contribute to a meaningful quality of life. People with acquired deficits in physical, cognitive, and visual skills can lose independence in eating and drinking. In this course, you will learn how deficits influence grooming performance and consider how habit adaptations, environmental modifications, and interventions for person variables can maximize outcomes.

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Video Runtime: 57 Minutes

This course will help learners develop better interaction skills when working with people living with dementia (PLwD). Using a consistent and sequential cueing system is part of developing skillful communication in dementia care. Beginning all interactions with a positive physical approach (PPA), a positive personal connection (PPC), and a positive action starter (PAS) greatly reduces the risk of negative encounters and problematic interactions. The use of person-first, "go with the flow" responses and improved non-verbal strategies will be demonstrated to foster better understanding of messages and requests as well as better participation with fewer episodes of distress or frustration.

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This course will review considerations a therapist must address during a comprehensive evaluation of traumatic/complex elbow injuries. Therapists must also be knowledgeable about the types of complex elbow fracture diagnoses they may see in documentation or on therapy prescriptions, to determine what structures are involved. To begin the course, a review of the wound healing process as it relates to all structures involved will be presented. Following this, pertinent biomechanical studies will be reviewed that will impact decisions made by therapists through all phases of rehabilitation. Lastly, special considerations on emerging areas of practice will be discussed that can assist the therapist in developing a more client-centered treatment plan. In the literature, various terms are used to describe complex traumatic injuries. Due to this variability, the injuries in this course will address those that are a result of trauma that involves damage to two or more of the following structures: soft tissue (skin/fascia), bone, muscle, tendon, ligament, blood vessels, and peripheral nerve injuries.

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Video Runtime: 69 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 14 Minutes

In this course, participants will be instructed in how to develop a customized program that is based on scientific principles and current evidence of injury prevention and management. This course will review the unique risk factors facing musicians, and common causes of upper extremity musculoskeletal injury. We will review assessment methods to correctly identify faulty movement patterns, poor practice habits, and demonstrate how to use movement and functional analysis to identify the source of the problem and develop customized recommendations for a range of instruments and conditions. We will discuss methods to optimize musculoskeletal health and improve performance. We will address instrument-specific ergonomic requirements and learn how to select the correct exercises and rehabilitation strategies to prevent and manage common injuries in musicians and guide safe return to play.

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Video Runtime: 80 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 31 Minutes

The course is a review and update on new neuroscience and applicable cognitive-communication research for addressing impairments associated with right-hemisphere stroke. The course will emphasize research on those impairments and interventions that cross therapeutic disciplines. The areas reviewed include executive functions, such as strategic attention, working memory, error monitoring, and self-regulation. The content also focuses on the impact of hemispatial neglect on activities of daily living as well as literacy and social communication skills.

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This course sets the stage for understanding occupational therapy's role in the acute care setting, and how discharge planning and recommendations have evolved as an essential part of a patient's road to recovery and rehabilitation. The paradigm shift in OT services from Assessment-Intervention-Discharge Planning to Assessment-Discharge Planning is discussed. Occupational therapy practitioners must consider both the internal and external factors when making discharge recommendations to minimize the risk of adverse events and readmissions. Finally, this course reviews the different types of settings that patients may be transferred to after discharge along with their criteria, to help the OT practitioner effectively problem solve in making the most appropriate recommendation.

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