Carli Charbonneau 1

Carli Charbonneau

May 22, 2022

Internship overview

During our internship, I did half of it at the Lowville Hospitals Occupational therapy

department and I did my final half with the Adirondack central schools Occupational Therapist.

During this rotation, my knowledge of this field grew immensely. I learned that Occupational has

a very wide variety of treatment options and that the treatment is crucial for many people.

When I started at the hospital, I thought that is where I wanted to be, I liked the fast but

not overwhelming pace, the setting, and the constant practice of your skills so you can maintain

a high knowledge level of your skills. At the hospital I was mainly with the hand therapist, she

was very knowledgeable and helpful. She would get patients for things like strokes, fractures,

car accidents, farming accidents, and other trauma situations. In these cases, she would start

by putting their hand in a Fluidotherapy machine, which is a high-intensity heat machine

consisting of a dry whirlpool of finely divided solid particles. According to Aetna.com, this

machine is used for “reducing pain, edema, and muscle spasm from acute or subacute

traumatic or non-traumatic musculoskeletal disorders of the extremities”. After putting them in

the machine, she takes their hand out and proceeds to stretch and massage it, to get everything

loose and push inflammation out. She then, if necessary, gives them exercises to strengthen

their hand, or get them used to using it again for stroke patients. Watching her was fun but I

quickly found out that this is not what I wanted to do, I didn't like the repetitiveness of her

everyday work, I like to have more variation in my day-to-day work.

I then got to watch the acute care occupational therapist, she was responsible for

teaching patients how to adapt to their situations after surgeries or as they get older she

teaches them ways to be able to take care of themselves if they lose mobility. I only got to watch

her one day, and on that day, she was working with a patient that fell and broke his hip, he then
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got it fixed and had limited mobility. She gave him multiple ways to adapt to that, like using a

rope with a plastic cuff at the end for putting socks on, or a grabber tool to get out of reach

things. Her job is a crucial part of a patient's recovery, without her they would not know how to

go abouts returning to normal everyday life before getting fully recovered. I also liked the pace

of this job, fast but not overwhelming, I also like how grateful the patients are to be receiving this

one-on-one, personalized help.

My absolute favorite side of occupational therapy was in the school setting, I liked how it

was medium-paced and very manageable. I loved working with kids and being involved in their

high energized spirits. When I was with Miranda, I would meet her at Boonville elementary and

we would ride to west Leyden together. After getting there, depending on what letter day it was,

she would go get her kids. After getting any of her kids she would make them do exercises, for

younger kids or kids with special needs she would make them do animal walks, like “duck walk,

run like à cheetah, waddle like à penguin, crab walk, etc.”. After this she would then go into their

task for the day, she did a variety of activities with them, like cutting, gluing, writing, and also

many balance and strength activities. We would also go outside and draw with chalk if it was

nice. After going to west Leyden elementary, we would go back to Boonville where she was until

lunchtime. One case that really stuck out to me was à second grader that had à stroke as à

newborn baby. Due to this, his right side was affected. Miranda would take him during lunch and

she made him use his right hand while he ate. After he ate, she would do strengthening

activities with him to get his arm muscles back up to even with the other.

Interning at the elementary school was definitely my highlight, now I know that

elementary OT is really my dream job. I love working with kids and I love the variety of things I

can do with them

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http://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/400_499/0450.html#:~:text=Use%20of%20fluidized%20

therapy%20dry,musculoskeletal%20disorders%20of%20the%20extremities.