Spotlight
Morgan Stasell, OTS
In each issue of the Communiqué, the “Clinical Spotlight” section features practitioners who are doing exceptional
work. For this issue, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alicia Tuuk, DrOT, OTR/L. Alicia is a practitioner at
Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital who has recently completed her advanced clinical doctorate degree. She displayed
great enthusiasm, compassion, and innovation towards her work as an occupational therapy practitioner. Her work
also strongly demonstrates the importance of client-centered practice in the rehabilitation setting. Below is a tran-
script of my interview with Alicia.
Background
I received my masters at Governor’s State University
in 2014. Then, I went into the doctoral program at
Governor’s State University to complete my advanced
clinical doctorate degree. As a part of the doctoral program,
I had the opportunity to develop my own practice model
based on my own philosophical lens, occupation-based
practice model, and theoretical sciences and frames of
references utilized in my every day practice. Additionally,
my research focus during my clinical doctoral degree
surrounded the development of a therapeutic gardening
program for patients with paraplegic spinal cord injuries
(SCI). As an occupational therapy practitioner at Schwab
Rehabilitation Hospital, I knew of an underutilized
rooftop garden at the facility. I wanted to empower
patients with paraplegia to engage in the gardening
environment through adaptive participation.
What interested you in working at the Schwab
Rehabilitation Hospital?
When I began practicing as an occupational
therapist, I was in acute care at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Then, I started rotating to the inpatient rehab SCI unit
at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital. I enjoyed seeing the
continuum of care from acute care to inpatient rehab.
Currently, I appreciate being in inpatient rehab, since I
am able to see patients for a longer amount of time and
truly build rapport with them.
What do you like the best about working in this type
of facility or with patients who have SCIs?
I have always been drawn to working with patients
with SCIs. I enjoy working on the inpatient rehab SCI
unit because we get to spend so much time with our
patients. I believe that spending a longer amount of time
with patients allows you to develop a stronger and more
trusting relationship with patients, which enables you to
empower them to become as independent as possible.
In addition, here in Chicago, we have a really unique
patient population because of various traumatic injuries
due to gun violence. I also am challenged through
working with patients who have various barriers to their
recovery, such as low health literacy and low income, in
addition to their injuries.
What do you think are the biggest challenges when
working with patients
with SCIs?
A lot of patient’s say, “I
just want to be able to walk”.
Depending on the patient’s
level of spinal cord injury,
this form of mobility may
not be feasible. Instead, I
educate and encourage them
to become as independent
as possible with their ADL
tasks, neurogenic bowel
and bladder programs,
and prevention of secondary conditions (i.e.- pressure
injuries) to safely discharge into their home and
community, despite their disability. Additionally, gearing
therapy towards meaningful participation and patient-
centered goals at a wheelchair level, and not focusing on
the walking aspect of the task, enables them to participate
in tasks that can continue to be meaningful and increase
quality of life.
At times, many patients are “grieving” their past-
ambulating self. As an occupational therapist, I love
being able to empower patients with SCIs to become
independent at a wheelchair level to be able to engage
in activities they previously engaged in, even if it looks
differently. Encouraging them and educating the family
members on new ways to do things increases their
awareness of how they can be independent, despite their
physical impairment.
Another challenge I face is working with patients who
have low health literacy and ensuring they understand
all of the information given to them pertaining to
their injury. Patients receive a great amount of health
information related to their diagnosis; a majority of that
information is forgotten or not attended to. I typically
try to go through information verbally with patients and
have them demonstrate or repeat back to me, as well as
relate it to and incorporate it into their daily activity to
be practiced and applied.
The therapy team and myself have also made handouts
that are geared towards serving people with low health
literacy. Working together with the therapy team helps
to overcome many of these barriers, and we continue to
re-evaluate the care that is provided and make changes to
provide the best care based on the available resources.
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