Hey all! Just thought I'd drop by and tell you guys how my clinical placement went (today was my last day).

In case you didn't read my previous journal entry, I've been on placement at a gereatric hospital where they take care of people who've had strokes, are at the end stages of renal failure, have dementia, etc. I was working more in the first two areas while the other student was working more in the dementia wing.
And... it was... odd O.o

To start with our supervisor was only in for 2 days a week and didn't even work at my setting, so the other student and I had to learn everything ourselves pretty much and had to wait til the end of the week to be able to ask OT related questions. However, I got a help run a LOT of group activities this year and just yesterday I lead my own cooking group for the lower functioning residents (It had been my idea, I planned it all and got to carry it out backing it up with OT theory, twas sweeeeeet).
The residents were nice and relatively easy to get on with too. One woman says I should make sure that once I find work I make sure to have one free day to work back at my placement so sweet, although she won't remember me come Monday. I got one of the residents really into playing Backgammon and now she's wanting to get a set for the hospital so she can play against the Facility Manager (who just so happens to play as well). I also did a lot of work with one of the lower functioning residents to try and figure out more about her cognitive state after having had 3 strokes rather than just going by the clinical notes that just said 'Cognitive Impairment'.

The other student and I also have three side assignments to work on: We were to design a Sensory Room and Sensory Garden for the dementia residents to help stimulate and/or relax them if they were getting into one of their mood, and the design a flipbook for patients who either can't speak or can't speak English to use in order to communicate their needs to the caregivers. At the start I did a bit of stuff for the room, but I did a lot more work on the garden because of my Mum and Dad's gardening backgrounds (bwahahaha! All that yammering on about plants and crops and gardening finally came in useful!)

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And now it's all over for the year! *sigh* I'm actually going to miss them...