OT's distinct role with patient who are hospitalized for COVID-19

acomeau

Hello, I would like to have some brain storming for treatments for patients with COVID-19.

Our role in the hospital can aid in providing these patients with the quality care to improve their participation in occupations in more ways than one. I find it helpful to advocate for our role with specific treatment options to demonstrate our value to the medical team during this stressful time. I understand some hospitals are having difficulty with PPE and trying to minimize direct contact with patients, therefore this advocacy may be necessary to give the patients what they need to maximize their recovery.

My treatments focus on the following areas (adjusting as needed to stay client centered)...
- Positioning for maximizing respiratory functioning
- Pulmonary rehab
- Communication management to increase social participation
- Cognition training and re-orientation (prevention of delirium)
- Sensory stimulation
- Energy conservation
- Mental wellness (decreasing anxiety and depression symptoms)

I am happy to provide more details but I would love to hear your ideas!

Thank you OTs for your support through all this.

Audrey Comeau, MS, OTR/L

sbailey

Thank you for your thought Audrey. I am still a new grad in a small community and advocating for my role has been the most difficult process and then this is making it much more complex now. While we don't currently have any cases in hospital in my community, I have been looking for sources to prepare.

Rosa

Hi Claudia,

Here in Spain, the goverment has several rules and they are changing day by day so proffesionals are in stress about what we need to do...
I would like to share with you a guide that physioterapist has been done to treat patients with covid or those who are waiting to be diagnosed. this is teh title but I am afraid i don´t know how to share with you. "Physiotherapy management for COVID19" (i only have the spanish translation)

Fisioterapia en el manejo del paciente COVID19 en fase aguda hospitalaria. Recomendaciones para guiar la práctica clínica
Versión 1.0 23 Marzo 2020
Open access: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-physiotherapy
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphys.2020.03.011

I am interested to create some OT guides as well.

Claudia

Thank you for sharing this resource regarding COVID19. WFOT has developed a central registry of resources available from WFOT and other organisations related to COVID19 that can be accessed at https://www.wfot.org/covid-19-information-and-resources-for-occupational-therapists Please watch this central registry for resources that may be helpful in your practice.

cbrogan

Hi Audrey,

We are reaching out to you from the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Quebec as we have been designated the central hospital for covid-19 patients. We have identified (for the moment) four therapist who make up our "covid-19" team here at the hospital. We are working quickly to establish our roles here during this difficult time. We are currently working in the emergency, the ICU and on the covid positive units. We are interested in having a online conference with you to share ideas and brainstorm what our role should be in the acute care setting including all the barriers that come with this endeavour. Is this something you are interested in? Where abouts are you working?

Jason Newman

Hi all

I am an OT in the UK in an acute hospital. We are preparing for a high number of COVID admissions in the next 10-15 days. There is a lot of worry from staff about how we can respond to this crisis and what our role should be. Typically in our health care trust OTs become involved in patient care fairly late in their pathway (by the time patients can mobilise with an aid and assistance). We are trying to develop a protocol for therapy provision that would best meet the needs of COVID-19 patients. It might require some major changes to our practice as we are not used to treating patients who are clinical unstable with respiratory disorders. Keen to hear if anybody else has developed a protocol or is involved in service delivery under similar circumstances.

Thanks

Jason

cbrogan

Hi Jason,

We have developed guidelines for our acute care phys med department. Feel free to reach out to us cbrogan@jgh.mcgill.ca

-Cathryn

AndrewNicholasOT

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is staying safe!

I found some great articles online that assist with determining OT scope of practice in critical care settings.

Weinreich, M., Herman, J., Dickason, S., & Mayo, H. (2017). Occupational therapy in the intensive care unit: A systematic review. Occupational Therapy in Health Care, 31(3), 205-13.

Costigan, F.A., Duffet, M., Harris, J.E., Baptiste, S., & Kho, M.E. (2019). Occupational therapy in the ICU:A scoping review of 221 documents. Critical Care Medicine, 47(12), e1014-1021.

Hope you find this helpful! Stay safe!

- Andrew Nicholas (nicholasa@rvh.on.ca, Occupational Therapy Professional Practice Leader, RVH Barrie ON Canada

Rosa

I would like to share this video but I am afrais is in spanish. This is an OT working in ValleD´Hebron hospital (Cataluña,Spain) in UCI with COVID patients, she is explaining who the team is doing ther and the input of OT point of view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6erpXh34nI
I hope you can have a translator
Rosa

SCHINDLV

Hello everyone,

Recently I gave this presentation on COVID-19, Implications for OT via Zoom to OTs in South America, primarily in Colombia. I am now sharing this with the WFOT community, if this is helpful to you.
Recientemente, di esta presentacion, COVID-19: Implicaciones por TO via Zoom por terapuetuas ocuapacionales, ante todo en colombia, SA. Ahora, la estoy compartiendo con la comunidad de WFOT, si les es util.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1rZMATIncR490f6r3tqZDvHpSla6BRYXg

Victoria P. Schindler, PhD, OTR, BCMH, FAOTA
Professor of Occupational Therapy
Master of Science in Occupational Therapy Program
Stockton University
Galloway, NJ 08205
victoria.schindler@stockton.edu