The American journal of occupational therapy : official publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association
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Prolonged symptoms from the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), otherwise known as long COVID, postacute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), or post-COVID syndrome, are affecting an increasingly high number of patients after severe, moderate, and mild acute COVID-19 infections. Using evidence-based practice strategies, this case report describes occupational therapy evaluation and treatment approaches, plan of care, and associated outcomes for one client experiencing long COVID symptoms in the outpatient setting.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reshaped the health care landscape, leading to the reassignment of essential health care workers to critical areas and widespread furloughs of providers deemed nonessential, including occupational therapy practitioners. Although multidisciplinary critical care teams often include occupational therapy practitioners, efforts to define, measure, and disseminate occupational therapy's unique contributions to critical care outcomes have been overlooked. This editorial provides recommendations to improve the occupational therapy profession's readiness to meet society's current and future pandemic needs. We propose a three-pronged strategy to strengthen occupational therapy clinical practice, education, and advocacy to illuminate the distinct value of occupational therapy in critical care.
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This systematic review summarizes existing studies on dry needling for spasticity and range of motion (ROM) and discusses its potential for use as an occupational therapy intervention. ⋯ This article provides information that may be helpful in determining the appropriateness of dry needling as an occupational therapy intervention.
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Review
Moving From Cultural Competence to Cultural Humility in Occupational Therapy: A Paradigm Shift.
As the U.S. population becomes increasingly multicultural, occupational therapy practitioners must be adept at working with diverse populations. For the past 15-20 yr, many occupational therapy scholars have recognized this need, and in response, they have promoted cultural competence training. Although cultural competence has provided an important initial conceptual framework for the field, I argue that it is time to move toward a practice of cultural humility, which is defined by flexibility; awareness of bias; a lifelong, learning-oriented approach to working with diversity; and a recognition of the role of power in health care interactions. In this article, I present three main arguments why cultural humility is a more useful and critical conceptual framework than cultural competence, and I review preliminary research that examines the influence of cultural humility on patient experience. I conclude by briefly describing how cultural humility can be incorporated in occupational therapy curricula and applied in clinical and community practice settings. ⋯ This article provides a clear articulation of what cultural humility is, how it differs from cultural competence, and how it can be applied in occupational therapy.
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The Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ) is the most widely used measure of difficulties with activities of daily living and academic performance in children with developmental coordination disorder, but this tool has not been adapted for use in Spain. ⋯ This study provides evidence of the cultural equivalence of the DCDQ-ES for use with Spanish children. Occupational therapists in Spain can use the DCDQ-ES to evaluate children's motor coordination difficulties in everyday activities.