On 29 November 2011 I will be presenting the results of my study tour at the OT Australia special interest group for Occupational Therapists Working with Adults Living with Disability.
My final report was completed at the beginning of 2011 - if you would like to receive a copy, please contact me at [email protected]
On 29 November 2011 I will be presenting the results of my study tour at the OT Australia special interest group for Occupational Therapists Working with Adults Living with Disability.
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I flew out of Dusseldorf on Wednesday afternoon and have spent two nights and one day in Dubai, attempting to readjust my inner clock on the way home. While in Dubai I used the hop on/off Big Bus around town which let me see most of the major sites. One of my first stops was the Gold Souk (market) which is world famous for its gold and other jewellery. In my half hour flying visit I bartered for some bright pink sequinned shoes and two pashminas. The highly recognisable Burj Al Arab hotel. My study grant didn't allow me to stay here, or get a private transfer direct from the airport via helicopter (the small circle on the top left hand side is the heli-pad....) I didn't check into Atlantis on the Palm, at the top of Palm Jumeirah either! But I do love it how residents of Palm Jumeirah don't have street names but a reference to which 'frond' they live on - 'come and visit me at 28 Frond D'..... The visibility is pretty low but you can see some of tall buildings further down the coast. I went on an evening cruise in a traditional Dhow boat along the Dubai 'creek'. As you see, the amount of water indicates that this isn't a creek as we know it! And me using the evening light to make it look like I got even more of a tan than I really did! I arrived home into Melbourne at 6.30am Saturday morning, and it is wonderful to be back with my husband and family. Today was my first day back at work and I have surprisingly adjusted to the time zone pretty well (I may have another answer at the end of the week).... Thank you so much again to everyone who has been a part of my Ethel Temby adventure - from helping me with my initial Ethel Temby application, making arrangements for me to visit services, spending time with me on the day, or following my progress via my blog. I want to say a special thank you to Yooralla, who has so willingly supported me using almost two months of this year to travel, and to the people I work with - you have inspired me to be passionate about wheelchairs and seating, and it is this passion that has driven my study tour.
I will now be spending some time writing up a report that details what I have learnt and experienced. Following that, I will also make available the tools that I am developing to support therapists or facilitators when they work with someone to get a piece of mobility equipment. I will use my blog as well as the email addresses I have collected to announce when my report and the tools are available. I will continue to check my blog and would love to stay in contact with the people I have met and continue to share ideas about how we engage the people we work with and keep improving the quality of the services that we deliver. This isn't the end, but the start of something that I hope will keep growing. Till next time, Janelle [email protected] Today I caught the train down to Bonn, the birthplace of Beethoven. Beethoven is one of my favourite composers and the pink house is where he was born and grew up. The museum includes of copies of his music transcripts and some of his piano's. There are also studios where you can listen to Beethoven's music and participate in an interactive 21st century opera. Also enjoyed a cruise on the Rhine. This is coming into Konigswinter - you can see some castles up on the hillside. Me! Been to a few places since my last blog. Hope you enjoy! Got a chance to check out Dusseldorf itself. I had always thought of Dusseldorf as quite industrial, but the old town is really vibrant with amazing old buildings. Down on the Rhine is the best place to be - it's very easy to sit there for hours in the evening! The river at sunset. I have since travelled to Cologne and here is the Dom Cathedral - the largest in Germany. I climed the belfry, which is the tower on the left hand side. You can get almost as high as the second tallest point on the spire. And there is no lift - a spiral staircase the whole way! Views from the top toward the Rhine. The windows inside the cathedral. Right near the cathedral is the Hohenzollern Bridge, a large railway bridge with pedestrian walkway. Along the railing are thousands of padlocks with couple's names inscribed on them. For those who haven't heard of the Love Locks tradition, you lock the padlock in place and then through the key into the river. Some of the padlocks have additional cards attached announcing 50th wedding anniversary's and the like. Maybe there is something in it! If nothing else it makes for a good photo... Cologne also has a chocolate factory and museum. Watched them make Lindt chocolate and truffles. Not as many samples as I hoped, but I know now a bit more about where chocolate comes from. The museum also included a history of chocolate packaging and advertising and the socio-economic influences. I could try and summarise, but instead here is me with the Milky Cow! And believe it or not, Cologne is actually famous for Cologne... Since I last blogged I have caught the train down to Dusseldorf and spent two days at the Tradeshow and Congress. I knew that it was going to be big, but the size of the tradeshow is really something else. You can see a map of the tradeshow in the background. There were seven different halls that you could walk through. It took me all of the first day just to walk around it once and get a feel for what was on offer! As expected there were a lot of wheelchairs, and most of the major brands like Invacare, Sunrise and Pride were there. There were also plenty of companies that I hadn't heard of before with some different products. There was a wheelchair that you drove by pressing your teeth together in different patterns (down side, you have to wear an unattractive head device); a sonic sensor that beeps if you get close to something and stops the chair is you are too close (could be bad if you want to drive near to someone in a van or get under a table, but will be talking to Albert about this one!); wheelchairs with seats that move as a person extends through their hips; a mid wheel drive chair that has powered front wheels to help you get up over curbs (rather than smaller castors that can get caught on things); and a different backrest system that can be shaped and adjusted to suit a range of shapes. As well as wheelchairs there were stands for other personal care and daily living equipment. I saw a bath lift that allowed you to add in lateral supports, a head rest and a wedge to stop your bottom slipping forward; a standing hoist that had the grab handles in a different position and the sling had a strap that went under the bottom to help the person stand; powered wheels that turn a manual wheelchair into a powered wheelchair; some new communication devices that are small, easy to mount to wheelchairs and can also link with your phone and environmental controls; a whole range of easy to use mobile phones that should be availalbe in Australia; lots of stair lifts for wheelchairs, modified bathrooms and kitchens; modified vehicles; sports equipment; and information about local disability services. Some of my favourites are as follows.... Want to go skiing but your legs don't work so good? The video footage of people using these systems is crazy! How about drive a Ferrari but you need modified controls? No problem. Already done. In one hall they had lots of demonstrations including wheelchair basketball and netball; wheelchair archery, bowling and table tennis; shooting for the blind (yes, it does exist); and the assistance dogs. The dogs are beautiful and it is amazing what they can do. One hall was also set up as a gallery filled with artwork, sculptures and jewellery made by people with disabilties. Unfortunately no photos were allowed. Most of the work was being sold, and the artworks were going for 60-70 euros or more.
REHA Care has been an eye opening and good fun experience - I'm really glad I have finally been. A few things to update you on in this blog. I have been staying in Zandvoort, which is about half an hour on the train out of Amsterdam and right on the beach. On Monday I visited Nieuw Unicum to get a feel for wheelchair prescription in the Netherlands, and today I spent the day in Amsterdam before catching a train to Dusseldorf. Nieuw Unicum provides a range of services to a range of people with disabilities, specialising in the area of MS. Most notable is their accomodation services. At Nieuw Unicum there are individual flats where people can live and receive the support they they need, as well as communal areas such as a cafe, bar, garden and farm. There are also some satelite clusters of flats in the local area. Two hundred and fifty people are currently live at Nieuw Unicum. There is an occupational therapy and physiotherapy team who are based at Nieuw Unicum and part of their role is wheelchair prescription. Since the site is so large, each department has bicycles that staff use to ride around the buildings and grounds! I really enjoyed talking to staff from the different departments. Again the issues faced are very similar but I felt that the underlying approach to mobility may be based on different attitudes. For example, in Australia and the UK there tends to be a culture of getting a person to prove that they are able to drive a powered wheelchair. In the Netherlands the person is encouraged to try powered mobility until it is definitely proven that they cannot manage it. The criteria around implementing controls (ie adjusting the speed of a wheelchair) or removing equipment from a person are controlled similar to our restrictive intervention systems. If the person does not agree with the suggested action the recommendation needs to be approved by a physician and demonstrated to be the last possible resort. Nieuw Unicum also has a day program centre, which is run from this building. This is the hotel I stayed at in Zandvoort - lovely sea views from my window! And this is the beach I looked out onto. In Amsterdam today I walked around a lot of the canals... ...and visited Anne Frank's house. And lucky last, for those who haven't seen it before - the multi-storey bicycle parking station. My last day in Aberdeen had perfect weather and I spent a few hours driving down Deeside - along the river and through some beautiful towns with castles and fantastic old buildings. Then headed to the airport for my business class flight to Amsterdam. It really was business class - being a small plane the seat wasn't any different, but they pulled the blue curtain and we were served beautiful food as soon as we got off the ground (no waiting like in cattle class....) If I only I had the upgrade for my Dubai - Melbourne flight! Yesterday I met up with Albert and we spent the day driving around Dutch country side. Albert is one of the suppliers that I work with at home - he grew up in the Netherlands and comes to visit family each year and also attend the REHACARE tradeshow and congress that we are off to later this week. This is the castle ruins that we first stopped at. You are able to climb up to the top of the towers. And it looks as good as the photo in real life... Stopped off at the windmills - an essential tourist activity. Also visited the clog factory and have brought myself a pair. The clog factory had a small museum of different types of clogs - I wanted to bring home the glossy red high heeled clogs! As well as looking stunning against the landscape, I have learnt that windmills are actually functional and that they represented early industry. We visited a windmill that ground rock into paint powder (left), as well as one that ground peanuts and compressed them to get peanut oil. Windmills can also pump water and chop wood. The engineering is a real work of art and it was good fun being able to climb up inside and work out how all the parts moved. We then drove through some quaint little towns and stopped at two places along the lake before heading to Haarlem for tea (left). The whole day has reminded me how much I love Europe, especially sitting down in the town square having a drink or something to eat. Was lovely to have some local knowledge along they way too - except when Albert and the waiters would be speaking Dutch and the waiter would look at me as though I knew exactly what they were talking about! Have spent two fantastic days at the Aberdeen wheelchair service.As well as covering the area around Aberdeen, services are also provided to the Orkney and Shetland Islands. The challenges that come with these distances were fascintating to discuss. The team has a really person centred approach, and they are commited to helping each person get the best mobility equipment possible. Similar these have kept coming us such as getting everyone's point of view and not making assumptions. There was one clinic that we thought may have been quite challenging but there was really only one issue that was very relevant and easy to solve! In comparison to the SMART Centre, this is the most non-customised building for a wheelchair service! Offices and storage are squeezed in and I did a pretty good job of not getting lost... Good luck to those of you going to Shetland next week. I went into Aberdeen itself on Thursday night and walked around the streets. I believe this is Belmont Street, showcasing some lovely granite buildings that are prevalent here. I've seen both sides of Scottish weather - clear blue skies as well as rain and wind. So farewell Scotland - I'm flying out of Dyce airport this afternoon, so my next blog will be from the Netherlands Yesterday I picked up my hire care and had an amazing day driving up the west coast of Scotland. It was pouring rain for most of the day but it made the views no less enjoyable. I got from Edinburgh to a small town the east side of Inverness. Enjoy the pictures... The Forth Bridge coming out of Edinburgh The scenery Driving through Glen Coe Me Loch Ness I found the Loch Ness Monster! Kind of.... not really... Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness My B&B in Nairn Nairn beach - apparently Charlie Chaplin used to holiday here each year with this family I have just spent the most fantastic two days at the SMART (Southeast Mobility and Rehabilitation Technology) Centre at the Astley Ainslie Hospital in Edinburgh. The SMART Centre is very new (pictured left) - just over three years old - and was custom designed to house the wheelchair service as well as an Independently Living Centre style service, customised equipment manufacturing facilities and departments such as Prosthetics. In contrast, the rest of Astley Ainslie Hospital has some very old buildings and is located on some expansive grounds with beautiful gardens (below). I think I had to walk just as far through the gardens to get to the SMART Centre as I had to walk to get from my B&B to the front of the hospital grounds! The adult seating team is made up of OT's and physios, supported by technicians, bioengineers and clinical scientists. There is also a separate paedeatric seating team. During my time I sat in on a number of clinics and home visits. While the people themselves were not as complex as the team anticipated, every appointment raised issues that were extremely relevant to my project. I have had some discussions about why an issue can keep coming up despite actions being agreed on, and observed some very skilful interactions that have completely engaged the person in the assessment process regardless of their communication difficulties. My reflections have also reaffirmed that sometimes the way forward sounds like common sense, but when you are in the middle of a difficult situation it is useful to have some strategies to fall back on and help guide that process! Some key concepts I have collected over these two days are: * Don't go into a situation with preconceived ideas * Do get as much information about the situation from everyone's perspective before you decide on an action plan * Try and go back to each person with the action plan to make sure they understand how it is addressing their concerns for themselves or the person * Most importantly, always acknowledge that the issue is very real to the person, despite how trivial or absurd it sounds I am also very interesting if following up some research that was presented at the recent European Seanting Symposium by Sally Kyle titled "Power Relationships in Seating Assessment". Nice to know I am not the only person really interested in thsi Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of everyone from the wheelchair service. Maybe you can forward me a group picture of yourselves, at least for my memories or to put on by blog? :) Well a day off tomorrow... Getting my hire car tomorrow morning and making my way up north. Will see if I can find that Loch Ness Monster! |
AuthorMy name is Janelle and I am an occupational therapist working for Yooralla in Melbourne, Australia. In 2010 I am undertaking a study tour to collect and develop some tools to asssist therapists to work with people who have complex disabilities to make decisions about their seating and mobility equipment. Archives
November 2011
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