Allied Health

Fall Prevention Workshop

LSUHSC Occupational Therapy faculty and students will be providing a Fall Prevention Workshop on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 from 1-4 p.m. at Grace Episcopal Church, 2700 Canal St. Other participants include the LSUHSC Departments of Physical Therapy, Medicine, Community Nursing, as well as the Louisiana Fall Prevention Coalition and the Office of Public Health Injury Research and Prevention Program. For more information, see the official LSUHSC press release.

New! Allied Health Resource Guide

Just in time for fall semester, we’ve created a brand spankin’ new guide for you allied health folks. Whether you’re a cardiopulmonary-specialist-to-be or a long time OT faculty member, we’ve got you covered.

Find all the databases for your specialty, plus lists of selected journals, online books, and websites, all in one place:

ALLIED HEALTH RESOURCE GUIDE
http://www.lsuhsc.edu/no/library/resources/guides/AlliedHealth.html

Goodbye MTs & CLSs, Hello MLS (ASCP)!

For a number of years, there have been a several of different certifications for medical laboratory professionals. Depending on whether you were a clinical laboratory scientist or a medical technologist, you may either have a certification of MT or CLS. These certifications were managed by two different credentialing agencies: the American Society for Clinical Pathology Board of Registry (BOR) and the National Credentialing Agency for Laboratory Personnel (NCA).

Complicated? You bet! Having two credentialing agencies created competition and division, and certainly must have been a challenge to both entry level professionals and the labs that hire them to determine which certification was needed, required, and ensured best practices.

However, hope is on the horizon. Recently the ASCP and NCA announced the creation of a single credentialing agency, effective October 23, 2009. The NCA will be dissolved and the new, consolidated credentialing entity will be called the ASCP Board of Certification (BOC). Medical Technologists and Clinical Laboratory Scientists will credentialed as Medical Laboratory Scientists (MLS), and the ?óÔé¼?£ASCP?óÔé¼Ôäó suffix will be attached to all BOC certifications. Medical Laboratory Technicians and Clinical Laboratory Technicians will be unified as Medical Laboratory Technicians (MLT).

For more information on these upcoming changes check out this article from the Dark Daily, a site for clinical pathology news and trends. Detailed information on the unification process can be obtained from this NCA presentation.

It came from the stacks

Can pain relief be attributed to the use of static magnets? Is T’ai Chi an effective intervention for rehabilitating stroke victims? Can biofeedback (a therapy that uses specialized devices to help individuals learn how to influence the function of organs or body systems that aren?óÔé¼Ôäót usually thought to be under conscious control) control urinary incontinence?

Complementary Therapies in Rehabilitation: Holistic Approaches for Prevention and Wellness, edited by Carol M. Davis (EdD PT), attempts to addresses these questions and more. Rest assured, this is not some crunchy book on new age medicine. All chapters are written by licensed rehabilitation professionals, 12 of which hold PhDs in areas such as physical therapy, pathokinesiology, biochemistry, and neurophysiology, and backed up with references as well as a healthy dose of skepticism.

22 chapters are divided into 5 sections, beginning with an introductory manifesto on “energy techniques as a way of returning healing to healthcare.” Section two delves into the science that supports complementary therapies, such as quantum physics and psychoneuroimmulology. The final sections (body work, mind/body work and energy work, respectively) cover various approaches to rehabilitation, including Tai Chi, Myofascial Therapy, Yoga, and Rolfing.

In addition to very useful chapters and images on the use of T’ai Chi and Qi Gong in rehabilitation, what I like about this book is that the authors of the chapters offer a degree of skepticism when it comes to their subject, and hold no punches if the available research evidence is not up to snuff. As Neil Spielholz, author of the chapter “Magnets: what is the evidence of efficacy?” puts it, “Do not complain that you cannot get your work into the peer-reviewed literature when the reason is that the ‘research’ does not qualify as being credible.” References are provided at the end of each chapter, another trove of information for specific holistic approaches.

Overall, Complementary Therapies in Rehabilitation: Holistic Approaches for Prevention and Wellness is well-written and easy to read, either all at once or for a a specific technique. As written in the dedication, the book is for “all those people who are willing to hold an open mind and a positive attitude about the findings of ‘new science’…[and to] those helping to move science forward for the good of improved patient care.” For those interested in complementary approaches to patient care, and the theories behind it, this book is an excellent starting point.

BOOK INFO
Complementary Therapies in Rehabilitation: Holistic Approaches for Prevention and Wellness (3rd Edition: 2009)
Carol M. Davis, Editor
WB 320 D29c 2009
AVAILABLE FOR CHECK OUT — NEW BOOK SHELF — 3RD FLOOR OF LIBRARY

New! Rehabilitation Reference Center

A new database for PTs, OTs and rehabilitation professionals is now available.

Rehabilitation Reference Center is a clinical reference tool designed for use by rehabilitation clinicians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists at the point of care. It provides valid and relevant information intuitively and conveniently, using the best available evidence to help support clinical decisions.

FEATURES

The RRC is available to LSUHSC faculty staff & students, & can be accessed off campus with a valid LSUHSC library barcode & PIN. You can find a link to the RRC from our Electronic Resources page.

OTs do it with a helping hand

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Along with minority health awareness, library workers, STDs and organ donation, April 2009 is also Occupational Therapy month.

Occupational therapy enables people of all ages live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, prevent?óÔé¼ÔÇØor live better with?óÔé¼ÔÇØinjury, illness, or disability. It is a practice deeply rooted in science and is evidence-based, meaning that the plan designed for each individual is supported by data, experience, and ?óÔé¼?ôbest practices?óÔé¼?Ø that have been developed and proven over time. (AOTA)

The 2009 OT Month theme is autism. The American Occupational Therapy Association provides some useful resources on autism at their site PromoteOT.org

Here at LSUHSC we have an active Department of Occupational Therapy. In 2008 OT students volunteered to rebuild houses in the Broadmoor area. You can find other newsworthy events from LSUHSC OTs on the department news page.

Searching for a Clinical Trial

Clinicaltrials.gov offers a searchable database of clinical trials that are occuring world wide; it is provided by the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine. As of today, 38,757 trials are taking place in the United States and 2,816 of those are in Louisiana according to their searchable map.