Just finished a 6 week course on managing money with my patients, here’s one of our posters. Upsettingly its hard to find nice pictures of bills and food shopping but I promise we did discuss that as well as chocolate and shoes….
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At the beginning of the year myself and some colleagues visited the dementia centre at the Iris Murdoch Building at Stirling University (http://dementia.stir.ac.uk). I took some photo’s of some of the equipment and dementia friendly building design they had on display.
 Constrasting toilet seat
 Clear Signage
 See through, colour coded doors, so you can find your way back
 See Through cupboards with lights
 Photo phone
 Light switch options
 Adapted plates which actually look nice, contrast good for poor sight
 Cupboards where you don't forget where you've put things because you can see it!
I have a patient in the Day Hospital with ADHD, and when she first arrived she was bouncing all over the place. After her Sensory Integration assessment showed she had some sensory integration problems, we decided to use a weighted blanket. The blanket in the day hospital was too big to be easily transported so I decided to make a lap blanket. The results were fanastic, rather than sitting for just 10 mins her keyworker nurse reported her sitting for upto 45mins. I took photo’s as I made the blanket, if you are interested they are below. I made the blanket in two parts, a water proof weighted insert, and a washable more attractive cover.
 This is the weighted insert for the centre of the blanket
 I used barley to weight my blanket, but any pulse will do
 To stop the barley moving I seal them in small sections
 The finished weighted insert for the blanket
 To make my cover I used a high school musical cushion, and pink fabric
 All the pieces ready to make my blanket
 Sowing on the pocket for keeping fidgets in
 tacking all the layers of the cover together
 Turned the right side out, its almost finished only one raw edge to sow...
Doh! Totally forgot to take a picture of the finished blanket, so you’ll just has to believe me when I say it looked wonderful. My patient loves it. I was given this by one of the patients at the Garden Project, made me feel great about myself and OT skills.
The guys at the garden project had a refresher on Garden safety and made this beautiful poster, now on display in our work cabin.
I was asked to give a presentation at this years COT Specialist Section for OT’s working with Adults with Learning Disabilities, on my experiences in my first post. Slides below..
Last week I visited the New Struan Autism School in Alloa, to look at the design elements of the building and how this helps autistic pupils work within the space and manage more challenging parts of their behaviour. I took photo’s as I went so see below… Main ‘street’ of the school. The school is designed so you can see all the way through the school and out the other side. The theory is that if pupils can see the outside world, and have the feeling of openness then they are less likely to want to leave, or abscond. The corridor in the street is purposely wide so that pupils never feel crowded or penned in, and also allows pupils and staff to pass each other while maintaining a safe/comfortable space from each other.
All the doors in the school are colour co-ordinated, each class room has a different coloured door, so that it is easy pupils to return to the correct door once they have left.
 Different coloured doors
Through out the school the carpet leads you through the spaces. Dark blue carpet are moving spaces (e.g. corridors), light blue are still spaces (libraries, classrooms etc).
 Carpet that leads you to your room
Doors that look like doors, so help you find them, and instinctively how to use it. Note the door frame is in contrast to both the wall and door. Door handles that are easy to locate and easy to use.
 Doors that look like doors
Some pupils have difficulty getting to class, crossing thresholds and then staying in class… so the class rooms are designed to have a soft entrance which leads them into the room. When we were there one pupil only got as far as the entrance bay, so the class came out and all joined him there, allowing him to still attend.
 Classrooms that start outside
The school has a number of flexible spaces to use according to pupils needs, below is one room which is currently being used a quiet space/breakaway space, where this pupil sits, works, unwinds when the class room becomes too much.
 Secret quiet place
The library is open plan from the main ‘street’, unlike other schools where access to the library is limited to avoid damage, Struan finds that the open plan nature of the school actually stops damage to resources.
 The Library
The photo below is the of the casing for the utilities (power supply, fire safety system etc), they have cladded it with mirrors to give the illusion that you can see all the way down the corridor, creating a feeling of space
 mirrors on walls helps increase the open feeling of space
After previous post, I worked for 6 months as a day centre officer for an Adult Resource Centre, and then secured my first OT post within learning disabilities, and started on 10th Feb 2009, almost a year ago. This year was very busy and very quick, but finally I’m finished… Now all I need is a job. |
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