Research Poster Session - Box-U-Pation: Incorporating occupation in upper extremity practice

Background: Valued occupations are central concepts within the education of occupational therapists. The foundational aspects of occupational science reinforce meaning and value unique to individuals (Hasselkus, 2002). Understanding and building upon occupational identity is critical, as students learn to co-construct meaningful interventions with clients. The challenge of delivering services in an acute care medical setting focusing on injuries of upper extremities often stymies professional occupational therapy students in providing the blend of medical knowledge with the values imbued in foundational occupational science. Students, because of limited experiences need to engage in structured learning to move beyond impact of conditions into activities and occupations that are meaningful. Applying the principles of the scholarship of teaching and learning (Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997) a learning activity was crafted to foster critical thinking about occupation for students in a course focusing on upper extremity diagnoses and treatment. Creating an understanding of occupation-centered activities with clients possessing upper extremity diagnoses was identified as a problem for student learners in an Occupational Therapy program. Learning Objectives: Create an opportunity for students to apply the value of occupation-centeredness with acute care populations Foster critical thinking skills for students about developing valued occupations. Design: The student project “ Box-u-pation” was developed for students to apply critical thinking skills in developing valued occupations for clients that could be mobile (e.g,fit into a small box or shoebox) and could be used in a variety of settings with a variety of clients. The students were encouraged to apply creativity to promote understanding of relevance, logicalness, clarity, and depth (Paul and Elder, 2007) in the development and presentation of an intervention for use in an occupational therapy practice setting . The end product had both written and oral components. Oral presentations demonstrated critical thinking skills. Evaluation: Based upon the scholarship of teaching and learning, students were asked to contribute anonymous feedback about their learning as a result of participating in the activity. The following themes emerged: linking theory and classroom knowledge to meaningful occupation-centered practice, understanding the importance of the “just right challenge” and grading activities for clients, and creative interventions that could be used for multiple diagnoses. Application to OS/OT: Important because students often have difficulty bridging the gap between classroom knowledge about client diagnoses and how they can use their creativity to develop occupation based interventions in settings that may not promote or have resources for occupation-based practice. This project allowed students to utilize their clinical reasoning skills and creativity when considering the abilities and interests of a client with varying diagnoses to develop valued occupations. Keywords: Enabling, Occupation, Acute Car