Occupational Therapy News

Students in the News

MOT II student, Amy Garland,traveled to Haitti last Spring with Healing Hands for Haiti International Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing rehabilitation medicine to Haiti. This year she is leading a team of SMU students in May. www.healinghandsforhaiti.org

Phi Theta Epsilon (PTE)

The occupational therapy honor society, Phi Theta Epsilon (PTE), once again welcomed new members this year. Phi Theta Epsilon officers are:

  Student Occupational Therapy Association

The 2008-09 slate of SOTA officers is as follows:

SOTA Board Members 2007-2008

Synthesis Projects
Every year the second year students finish their two years with the culmination of research presented by the students formally to the rest of the class and faculty. This year the presentations will be on April  16, 2009. 

Professors Donna Breger Stanton and Rolando Lazaro with research group 2009.

Faculty Activities

The OT faculty are busy with many scholarly and service-related endeavors while at the same time pursuing excellence in teaching activities to maintain the high standards of the program.  

Associate Professor Donna Breger Stanton MA, OTR/L, CHt, FAOTA Donna is  presently serving as the Chair of the American Society of Hand Therapists annual meeting. Her paper, Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Contrast Baths, co-authored with Rolando Lazaro and Joy C. MacDermid, was published in the Journal of Hand Therapy, Jan-Mar 2009 issue. This is the final year of a multi-center study of contrast baths in which Donna is the lead researcher. In 2009, Donna was awarded the Vargas Award from the American Association for Surgery of the Hand. This award provides for travel to Thailand, with a hand surgeon, to share knowledge and education about hand therapy.

Assistant Professor Beth Ching M.Ed., OTR/L  Beth Ching is a member of the Committee on Equity and Inclusion at Samuel Merritt University (SMU); she has recently been appointed by the Academic Vice President to the Faculty Diversity Focus Group.  She will be part of the “Inclusion Explosion” formerly known as “Diversity Day” this Spring semester. She has assisted in hosting Occupational Therapy (OT) Fieldwork Seminars for Academic and Clinical Fieldwork Educators from all over the State of California on the SMU campus (2008-2009).  Beth currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Psychiatric Occupational Therapy Action Coalition (www.POTAC.org) as well to help increase awareness of how OT may benefit those in need of mental health services.    During the summer, Beth has the opportunity to supervise OT students in a psychosocial rehabilitation setting and also in an older adult day program.  She is also on the Curriculum Committee and has advised students on how to serve clients in our local community. Beth will serve as the new advisor for the Student Occupational Therapy Honor Society (PTE).   

Assistant Professor Ginny Gibson MS, OTR/L, CHT  Ginny was an invited speaker at the international conference, Promoting Bone Health in MPS IV: Framing New Therapies. She presented with Dr. Jacob Neufeld on carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve conduction studies and Semmes Weinstein monofilament testing in mucopolysaccharidosis. She will be presenting at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hand Therapists in San Francisco CA on Clinical Reasoning and Physical Agents: Employing an Evidenced-based Approach. Her paper, co-authored by Kate Hayner, EdD, OTR/L and Gordon Muir Giles, PhD, OTR, FAOTA, titled "A comparison of constraint induced movement therapy vs. bilateral treatment of equal intensity in persons post-CVA with chronic upper extremity dysfunction, was recently accepted for publication in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Ginny is making great strides towards establishing a Hand Camp for children with congenital limb differences and just recently returned from Texas, where she attended Texas Scottish Rite Hand Camp for children with limb differences to learn more about starting a Hand Camp in Northern California.

Professor Gordon Giles PhD, Dip COT, OTR/L, FAOTA  Gordon Giles current research interests examine the interpersonal triggers of behavioral deregulation in persons with neurobehavioral and neuropsychiatric disorders (Giles & Manchester, 2006).  Dr. Giles will be providing the Keynote address tot he 2009 UK Case Management Conference in to be held in London in may and will be consulting with a forensic service providers about the management of brain injured offenders.     

Gordon has been invited by AOTA press to provide a revised chapter for the upcoming 5th edition of the occupational therapy best seller The Occupational Therapy Manager. The chapter will focus on program development and will include vignettes contributed by occupational therapists who have successfully developed novel and innovative services for clients. 

Gordon is currently negotiations regarding the production of the second edition of the Brain injury Rehabilitation: A Neurofunctional Approach to (Giles & Clark-Wilson, 1993).   Recent evidence published in the journal Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (Vanderploeg et al., 2008) has supported the Neurofunctional approach authored by Giles and Clark-Wilson.  The largest multi-center controlled trial of rehabilitation ever conducted has found that the Neurofunctional approach was comparable to an established form of cognitive rehabilitation when added to standard care in the principles outcome measures of return to school or work or return to independent living. Younger participants (<30 years old) and those with less education who participated in the cognitive group had better work or school related outcomes at one-year follow-up than participants in the neurofunctional group. Further, older participants (>30 years old) and those with more education who participated in the neurofunctional group had better independent living outcomes at one-year follow-up than participants in the cognitive group. This study provides evidence that there are two viable interventions for use in acute rehabilitation after TBI that may confer benefits when applied in addition to standard care, and that targeting specific populations and goals may maximize treatment effectiveness. A further study reported by  Parish and Oddy in the journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation (Parish & Oddy, 2007) found that the neurofunctional approach is the only approach demonstrated to improve functional outcomes in persons who are over ten years post traumatic brain injury.   ReferencesGiles, G. M., & Clark-Wilson, J. (Eds.). (1993). Brain injury rehabilitation: A neurofunctional approach. San Diego: Singular.  Giles, G. M., & Manchester, D. (2006). Two approaches to behavior disorder after traumatic brain injury. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 21(2), 168-178.  Parish, L., & Oddy, M. (2007). Efficacy of rehabilitation for functional skills more than 10 years after extremely severe brain injury. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 17(2), 230-243.   Vanderploeg, R. D., Schwab, K., Walker, W. C., Fraser, J. A., Sigford, B. J., Date, E. S., et al. (2008). Rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury in active duty military personnel and veterans: Defense and veterans brain injury center randomized controlled trial of two rehabilitation approaches. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 89, 2227-2238.   

Adjunct Instructor Marcia Goodman , Esq., OTR/L  Marcia Goodman-Lavey and Elliott Lavey, M.D. will jointly present at the International Plastic Surgery Meeting in Israel in March 27, 2009.  Elliott Lavey is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon.  The topic they are speaking on is entitled, "Rehabilitation of Plastic Surgery Patients. Their presentation is based on a program that was created for post-bariatric patients who receive plastic surgery body contouring after massive weight loss, as well as cosmetic plastic surgical procedures, that have been found to benefit from occupational therapy including wound healing and scar management. Some of the areas that will be addressed, but not limited to, include interventions in ADL, occupational roles and activities, energy conservation, safe functioning, decreasing pain and edema, facilitating healing of wounds, scar management, exercise, posture instruction and maintenance program.   

Adjunct Instructor Robyn Wu OTR, OTD  Professor Wu has been working with the California Department of Education to develop the California Preschool Learning Foundations for physical development.  The Foundations provide preschool teachers, administrators, and parents with current research-based information about the development of preschool-age children.  The aim of the Foundations project is to guide California’s preschool programs with designing developmentally appropriate activities and instruction.  Robyn worked collaboratively with a research consortium including experts from the disciplines of child development, physical education, and kinesiology; the occupational therapy perspective on perceptual motor, visual motor, and fine motor development was particularly valued by the multidisciplinary team.  Robyn was invited by the California Department of Education to serve as a lead researcher for creating the curriculum framework to accompany the physical development foundations, which is scheduled to commence in the summer of 2009.   Back in her home state of Idaho, Robyn was invited to speak at the Idaho Occupational Therapy Association’s Annual Conference in 2008.  Robyn presented an evidence-based review of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI).  Robyn highlighted the pathophysiology and common occupational performance challenges of children with mild TBI, whose needs are often unrecognized or misunderstood.