by: Mason Gentry
The Occupational Therapy Program is hosting a Learning Information for Every Day (LIFE) clinic at Parkland on Mattis from Jan. 28 through March 10.
This seven-week program is designed to help area residents who live with pain or have difficulty completing daily tasks.
In an interview with Michelle Roberts, director of the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program, she explained that the program is “for clients who have more chronic type conditions and they just need a little help or ideas of how to do something in an easier manner.”
The purpose of the LIFE clinic is to help people who have already finished rehabilitation but are still having difficulties with simple to more complex daily tasks. Roberts said that the clinic is more for people who, perhaps, had a stroke a few years back and are still finding some things difficult.
“We work off something called habilitation rather than rehabilitation. Habilitation is about, in a sense, meeting somebody where they are and helping them regain the ability to do tasks with strategies or equipment,” Roberts said.
The clinic is not for rehabilitation as they would need a doctor’s prescription for those purposes. However, Roberts said that if someone has had an acute illness or an acute injury, such as a stroke, she would advise to them that “they need to [rehabilitate] and they need to go to a rehab facility like Carle or OSF or a skilled nursing facility.”
The clinic is in the H-Wing and has been furnished to have a home-like feel, keeping clients comfortable by providing an environment which they are familiar with.
Once an appointment has been set up, the client will sit down in a one-on-one or one-on-two interview with Roberts or her students. “Clients go through a structured interview to find out what they feel like is difficult or what concerns them and then we base off our suggestions and find out what is important to them,” Roberts said.
Sometimes, Roberts and her students will make recommendations to clients. She said the recommendations can range anywhere from rearranging the client’s house, at-home exercises, or the use of devices made by the clinic or purchased at a store.
“I’ll refer them to somebody else if I feel like they need more than what we can offer them,” Roberts said.
The workers at the LIFE clinic use creativity and problem solving to make devises or recommendations to their clients.
Roberts said on behalf of the LIFE clinic team that “we brainstorm to figure out what might work. So we will problem solve, we might make [the devise] outside of clinic so we can try it. Or we might make it with the client once we decide the best device.”
“The students receive a valuable experience, too, as they must interview clients their lives and issues within it”
An example of a devise made by the LIFE clinic was a hand splint made for a woman who struggled with sewing.
“When she would sew, she would get a lot of popping and pain in her hand. We made a little tiny splint that goes around her index finger and it supported her finger enough that she stopped having popping and she could continue to sew,” Roberts said.
The students receive a valuable experience, too, as they must interview clients their lives and issues within it.
“The students also get to have one-on-one conversations with somebody they don’t know and interview them about the areas that they find difficult. That’s hard sometimes, initially talking to somebody you don’t know about their life,” Roberts said.
Anyone with questions pertaining to the LIFE clinic can call Roberts at (217) 353-2782 or email her at mroberts@parkland.edu.
