Diving into Motivation

Motivation is a component within humans that gives us a reason why we are doing what we do. There are many aspects to motivation and in order for individuals to achieve goals, they must know what their motivation is. This motivation can be for the cause of other or self and can change over time as our desires are matured. Motivation is particularly important to occupational therapy because our whole practice is centered around achieving the answer to the following question: How do we get you back to doing what is meaningful to you?

In the article, Anything is Possible, we find a young woman who has a passion for diving. The particular reason why this article caught my attention is that there is a unique component to her current diving situation. She sustained an injury in which she accumulated quadriplegia. The beginning of this article highlights Elizabeth Frost as an avid diver who travels all over the world scuba diving and is well on her way to earning a prestigious certification. However, following an accident, Elizabeth is left without movement of her arms and legs. Though she has this condition, it does not squash her motivation to dive and she has planned a trip in order to continue scuba diving.

There are several important components to this story that catch my attention through the lens of occupational therapy. The first is that Elizabeth still found diving a meaningful activity following her injury. In the scope of occupational therapy, we would encourage her through this activity and assist here therapy within it. Elizabeth has a unique situation in which she was able to gain the support and financial ability to continue in her diving. As an OT maybe an individual that we interact with does not have the ability to continue the diving component that they used to, however could we still get the individual in a swimming pool or maybe even just around the water. I think that it is important for an OT to recognize how important something is to an individual, and adapt therapy towards that. Even if that particular activity does not look exactly like what it used to. Another important component that I would like to highlight out of this story is the support that is around Elizabeth. As someone who must rely on the support of those around her in order to successfully dive, she must have an incredible base of family and friends who are willing. I think as therapist, this is why it is important to educate and encourage family members. For activities such as scuba diving, it wouldn't be very practical for Elizabeth to go try and achieve by  herself, however, with the support of those around her, she is able to get back to doing something that is meaningful to her. There is much to be learned about meaningful activities within this story and I would highly recommend this read to anyone who is seeking what is like to be motivated through potentially difficult circumstances.

References
Frost, Elizabeth (2016). Anything is Possible. Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. Retrieved From https://www.christopherreeve.org/blog/daily-dose/anything-is-possible-by-elizabeth-forst

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the OTPF

OTPF is a word you will hear a lot throughout your schooling and in the process of becoming an occupational therapist. It stands for Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process. Essentially it is the handbook that guides everything that an occupational therapist does. It establishes methods of how things such as evaluations and patient practice should be done as well as guiding how an occupational therapist is supposed to look at the environment around them. It pushes away from the idea of a traditional medical model in which an individual is identified by their disability. Instead it steers the occupational therapist to move towards that individual being identified by who they truly are and an additional quality about them is that they have this disability. It also addresses what aspects of a client we are looking for. Things such as client factors and their ability to perform different occupations. Another aspect of the OTPF is that it guides our scope of practice.
Read more

Button Brainz

Image
It's a weird title but a simple concept. Button Brainz is a game that I designed for a Neurological Aspects class. We were given an object, and told that we must design a game geared towards our client to help them achieve their goals. The result was an OT collaborative project that allowed me to express creativity through very simple means.   In designing Button Brainz, my biggest take-away was not to let the creativity of the design outshine the needs of the client. The first design that I thought of was to have Barbara sew the buttons on to a piece of fabric in the order of the card. However, after further reflection, I found that this method would not be best due to the amount of time it would take her to sew the buttons. Although it would have been client centered in her interests, it would not have been client centered in her functional ability.  In fact, I was able to realize that using the buttons in general is an effective way to engage Barbara's sewing interest.
Read more