This blog began as a journal of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Award visit to the USA to study how Lifestyle Redesign could be used in Occupational Therapy to improve the hospital/home interface for older people. It has continued to record developments and inspiration gained from that experience since returning from Los Angeles early in 2012.

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Be Inspired-
WCMT travel awards are open to all British citizens

Be Involved- learn about Lifestyle Redesign programs and contribute to the discussion about the potential of this approach.

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Wednesday 11 January 2012

Day 2

Today was spent at HSC, the morning doing some reading up on USC info, making calls and emailing to organise my schedule over the next few days.

After lunch I joined entry level Masters OT Professional Programme students for a Communication Skills for Effective Practice class taught by Linda Fazio. There are 120 students in the year group, divided into 3 groups of 40. They spend this semester rotating between 3 'immersion' subjects:- Pediatrics, Mental Health and Adult Physical Rehabilitation & Geriatrics. The students also attend general skills classes such as this. This is a new course design 'in response to to today's expectation that all practitioners integrate external evidence into their interventions, we explicitly synthesize didactic coursework and on-site intervention ...' The class will run for 16 weeks and I hope to join them during the time I am here as there are close links with the Motivational Interviewing techniques used in Lifestyle Redesign and to gain an understanding of the student experience here at USC. (Thanks to Linda and all the students for welcoming me into the class).

At the end of the day I sat in on the Pressure Ulcer Prevention Study researchers meeting, I will also attend the intervener meeting later this week. The researchers meeting discusses progress & issues with the research process and design. As a result of programmes like this being more widely delivered in various settings, OT is now being seen as being at the centre of 'wellness' work.


I'm beginning to get a feel for what the whole Lifestyle Redesign concept is about. Here are a couple of definitions I came across today:

' .., transformative, evidence based process of enhancing health & wellness by preventing or managing chronic conditions within everyday contexts.'

'...the process of acquiring health promoting habits & routines in your daily life..'

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