ILOTA Communique December 2017 Communique | Page 3

October / November / December • Issue 4 • 2017
President’s Address, continued from page 2
Check it out – OT practitioners in Illinois are fabulous!
We did two other things at conference that were a bit out
of the ordinary. Over the summer I attended an institute
that included a graphic designer. I had not seen this before
but it was such a wonderful addition to the discussion that
I wanted to try it. We were able to find Craighton Berman,
who came down to Bloomington and graphically recorded
Glen Gillen’s keynote address which was a reprisal of his
wonderful Slagle lecture. You can see a picture of the graphic
recording in this issue of the Communique. This was done
live and projected to the audience. What fun it was to listen
to Glen speak while watching the lecture evolve on screen
as a graphic. We have since had the graphic signed by both
Glen and Craighton. Hopefully posters will be available soon
for people who might like to purchase one, with proceeds
going to our endowed scholarship fund.
Lastly, we are growing. It is so exciting and also a little
daunting. As of this writing we are over the threshold of 800
members. That is double the members and income – and
budget – as when I started on the board 8 years ago. Looking
back over our history it looks like our max was somewhere
around 1234 in 1990, although we cannot find any records
of membership between 1990 and 1999. I think we are in a
position to top that in the next year. Of course, our growth
means more work that must be done. This year we will add
a part time office manager to take over many of the day-to-
day tasks that take time. Bill payment tasks, filing, running
certificates, day to day management of the website forms,
etc. Just running certificates for our online CE on ethics
takes a number of hours each week since we had around 600
people take the course. Hiring someone to work part time in
the office will free Jenny up to help lead efforts on our many
new member benefits - the online CE opportunities that we
will grow this year, the in-person CEs, our yearly conference
(and centennial event) and our new student conclave and
hopefully to support the start of our leadership development
program. Like I said, exciting, but daunting.
Before I close I do want to congratulate and welcome
new executive board members - President-Elect Jim Hill and
Director of Advocacy Michelle Sheperd. I would also like to
thank Gail Fisher for offering to take over as President of the
ILOTPAC. We are expecting to see some important things
happening in the state in the near future so I am glad to have
a strong advocacy team in Michelle and Gail. Hang onto
your ILOTA “hats” folks – it promises to be a great year.
Post Stroke Depression, continued from page 1
the best fit. Other disciplines that can assist in addressing
depression using a multi-disciplinary team are social work,
psychiatry, psych liaisons, and neurologists. Having the ability
to implement early screening tools and a cohesive team to
address depression for both patients and family may have the
potential to promote outcomes in rehab and involvement in
daily activities upon returning home.
References
Worrall. L (2016). Reducing The psychosocial impact of
aphasia on mood and quality of life in people with aphasia
and the impact of caregiving in family members through the
aphasia action success knowledge program: Study protocol
for rando m controlled trial. Worral et a.l Trials, 17, 1257-
1259.
Magdy(2012). Poststroke Treatment with Selective
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. A Journey from Sadness to
Recovery. American Stroke Association, 23, 3154-3155.
Chollett (2011). Fluoxetine for Motor Recovery After
Acute Ischemic Stroke (FLAME): A Randomized Placebo-
controlled Trial. The Lancet Neurology, 10, 1474-4422.
Caeiro. L, Ferro J. (2013). Post Stroke Apathy: An
Exploratory Longitudinal Study. Cerebrovascular Disease, 10,
507-513.
The Scholarship Committee is proud to announce…
We achieved our goal and reached $35,000! In partnership with the American Occupational Therapy Foundation,
the Illinois Occupational Therapy Association will establish an endowment fund for two scholarships. The first
scholarships will be offered in 2019 to an OT and OTA student. The scholarship committee recognizes that this
monumental achievement would not be possible without the generous support of the membership. Thank you to all
who donated and supported the fundraising efforts of the past year.
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