I want you, my family and friends, to know how to plan ahead so your home will be a comfortable place to grow old in. This type of planning ahead sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but the reality is that many of us will experience disability in our life time (about 1 in 5 Australians, and this...

As occupational therapists, we often use equipment to solve problems and enable our clients to live their lives their way. To achieve this very broad goal, we require a broad range of equipment, much of it very specialised. But the world of disability equipment can be a daunting one. A good sales...

In July 2017, I attended the Posture and Mobility Group conference in Cardiff, Wales. I returned to London feeling inspired and refreshed. In that post-conference euphoria, I wrote the following article for the PMG Journal. Edited by Olwen Ellis. Read the original here.

Here is a great little video...

Since my recent posts about working in the UK, I've been getting lots of questions. Here are some Frequently Asked Questions, with some answers. Please feel free to ask more by commenting at the bottom.

How did you ask your team leader for a professional reference for the HCPC Application despite...

UPDATE: Changes to the IR35 Intermediaries legislation, coming into effect for ** **the 2017/2018 tax year, mean that working as an OT locum through a limited ** **company is no longer an attractive option for me.

In the six weeks before I left Australia to start working in the UK, the agencies started...

The most important thing I learnt from the SPD University Miller Function and Participation Scales webinars is that this assessment relies on the therapist’s clinical judgement in the administration and scoring. Dr Lucy J Miller and Dr Sarah Schoen, who ran the e-learning courses made it clear that...

The UK is an attractive base for young Australians and New Zealanders to gain international professional experience, while travelling the world. Locumming makes this dream a reality. In the UK, locum roles are filled through recruitment agencies.

What is a Locum? The term 'locum' refers to a person...

While Australian health professionals are rarely denied registration, the application is definitely not quick and easy. I started the process in July 2015, and was granted my registration on 9th February, 2016. From start to finish, my application took about 7 months. It doesn’t “usually” take...

While studying Occupational Therapy at university, it became clear that working in the UK or Ireland for a couple of years was a very common thing for OTs to do. It’s a well trodden path. It sounded so easy: just get a couple of years' experience, and head on over there! It might even be a way of...

The Miller Function and Participation Scales (M-FUN-PS) is a standardised developmental assessment for children aged 2 years and 6 months, to 7 years and 11 months. It covers three motor domains: visual motor (VM), fine motor (FM), and gross motor (GM), as well as participation. The M-FUN-PS was...

Use of the Bumbo is a hotly debated topic. Paediatric physiotherapists passionately advise against it (see MamaOT's post "Beware the Bumbo," for example), while many parents claim it is a God-send. As an occupational therapist, is there a time when I would recommend the Bumbo seat? Short answer: Yes...

Knowing where to start when prescribing a mobile over-toilet shower commode chair can be difficult. This quick guide to choosing a mobile shower commode outlines the 10 most important questions that I ask myself or the user, once it has been established that a mobile shower commode is required. Choosing...

The SmartDrive is a power-assist device that attaches to a manual wheelchair. It works by adding a fifth, powered wheel to the rear of the chair. The wheel attachment also houses the battery, so there is no need for a separate battery pack, as there was with the original SmartDrive. The SmartDrive...

The EquaGel cushion is a relative newcomer to the Australian wheelchair pressure cushion market from Utah, USA. The "EquaGel" name was trademarked in 2011. It is on the Queensland Medical Aids Subsidy Scheme (MASS) Standing Offer Agreement (SOA) for wheelchair cushions, and costs about $250-$300...

The Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP) has been around a long time. It was developed by Marianne Frostig and colleagues in the early 1960s, and first standardised in 1963. The DTVP-2 was released in 1993, and most recently, the Third Edition of the DTVP was published by Pro-Ed in 2014...

Dragon Naturally Speaking, available from Nuance, has been around a fair while, and is one of the pioneers of voice to text technology. In this post, I'll share my learnings regarding Dragon Naturally Speaking Home 13. I've used this application more than the free Dragon iPad/Android app because...

The Jay cushion range, available from Sunrise Medical, is a tried and true pillar of the wheelchair cushion world. While the J2 isn't suitable for every application, it allows easy customisation with modular components, and the design works well for users of many shapes, sizes, and postures.

The...

Anyone who needs to use a wheelchair long-term should also be using a cushion on their wheelchair, due to impaired mobility, sensation, or both. Wheelchair cushions reduce the risk of developing a pressure injury and provide postural support. If the user doesn't have impaired mobility or sensation...

A place for sharing ideas and experiences with equipment.

If you were to look at a day in the life of an occupational therapist (OT), there's a good chance you'd come across specialised assistive equipment somewhere. OTs help people overcome obstacles such as illness, injury or disability to achieve...