Hi everyone! Can you believe we’ve been through half a year already? Time sure does fly when you love what you do. We can’t wait to share with you another month of helping people reclaim their independence back by helping them get behind the wheel again. Before that let us share with you some of our highlights for the month of June.
June Featured Blog Post
June Featured Vehicle Modification
A bit tricky to see but this showing the before and after of installing a left-sided floor mounted hand control going into a Tertiary. This is one of our most popular conversions and with our Williams OT no drill policy, this can all be taken out and added to a new car down the track without any damage to the existing car.
Featured Client for June: Deborah
Deborah, under her own intuition, decided to see her doctor because she was a bit worried about her feet on the accelerator. The Doctor then had her referred to see us a year ago. Her right foot was not deemed safe for driving, so we investigated driving with her left foot. With MS impacting on both lower limbs and her left slightly better than the right, although the left foot was assessed to be adequate in the pre Drive assessment, on the road the left foot did not have the speed and coordination and it was her non-dominant side. He was recommended to trial hand controls.
Unfortunately, she went back to see her doctor and they immediately suspended her licence. This was despite hand controls not being tested.
Through lots of negotiation with the doctor we had her reassessed by the medical team and she was issued with a temporary driving permit.
Due to costs, Deborah decided to trial different driving instructor due to costs. The driving instructor only had one set of hand controls available which did not fully suit their needs. The driving instructor also took her out into major traffic before she was ready.
This scared her and put her off driving the many months. She reported that she was thinking that she was never going to be able to get there and the fact that she couldn’t get it as quick as the driving instructor wanted her to progress, she thought it was her fault.
In the end, Deborah came back to Williams Occupational Therapy after she realised how important her independence was. She reported that she came back to us because of all the controls we have available to trial. We’ve now tried a bunch of different hand controls and found that a left-sided hand control with a right-sided spinner knob it’s better for “her” MS. A dominant right hand that is less affected than her left hand is perfect for steering with a spinner knob. The left hand has sound gross motor control for the hand control. This is opposite to what her previous driving instructor was recommending and trialling with Deborah.
Deborah reported she went through a period of really sulking and finding it difficult to comprehend life without driving but can now see a possible outcome. She’s paying for this because she can’t wait any longer for NDIS to assist her.
We are not saying we have the answer for everyone, but we are saying that a thorough assessment and knowledge of medical conditions and the functional impact is important to consider. We have high hopes for Deborah and wish her all the very best.
Other events
Brad has helped future driver trained OTs from UniSA and Flinders! All fun and exciting as we help them also with different car modifications that we use for our clients as well. Looking forward to seeing these lovely ladies and one gent helping people gain their confidence back through driving!
Another important highlight from the month of June from us, Brad had recently attended the Shaping the Future of Occupational Therapy forum.
Discussing how will the South Australian Occupational Therapy community shape our services to continue to meet needs of consumers in 5 years’ time and beyond.
Brad said, “it was so excited to be invited to join other thought leaders and decision-makers in the occupational therapy profession in discussing how the future of occupational therapy could and should look in South Australia as we navigate a changing professional landscape.”
Some interesting articles for you…
- Subjective Experiences of Driving Cessation and Dementia: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Literature https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07317115.2018.1483992
- Unpacking older drivers’ maneuver at intersections: Their visual-motor coordination and underlying neuropsychological mechanisms https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847817304503
- The relation between reinforcement sensitivity and self-reported, simulated and on-road driving in older drivers https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369847818300536
- Using Naturalistic Methods to Examine Real-World Driving Behavior in Individuals With TBI Upon Return to Driving: A Pilot Study https://journals.lww.com/headtraumarehab/Abstract/publishahead/Using_Naturalistic_Methods_to_Examine_Real_World.99494.aspx
- Driving and Patients With Dementia https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2333721418777085
- Self‐focused processing after severe traumatic brain injury: Relationship to neurocognitive functioning and mood symptoms https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjc.12185
- Return to Driving After Arthroscopic and Related Surgery: Before Patients Start, How Do We Know They Can Stop? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749806318303207
- The Myth That Women are Bad Drivers Dispelled https://nancylwayne.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/the-myth-that-women-are-bad-drivers-dispelled/
- Predictive Value of the Cognitive Performance Test (CPT) for Staging Function and Fitness to Drive in People With Neurocognitive Disorders https://ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=2682734
