Professional resources
Professional resources
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Welcome to Volume 88, Issue 9 of BJOT. This month, we’ ve grouped our research into themes and you can read all our peer-reviewed articles at https:// journals. sagepub. com / home / bjo.
Editorial
Roberto Tedeschi discusses from an occupational therapy perspective the drucebo effect, which refers to the negative impact of patient expectations and contextual factors on treatment outcomes, leading to poorer recovery, reduced adherence and heightened perceptions of disability.
Occupational therapy is particularly susceptible to drucebo effects due to its strong reliance on patient engagement, motivation and belief in the intervention’ s effectiveness.
Editor’ s choice
A scoping review with narrative synthesis on spirituality in occupational therapy practice, by Heather So et al, is our editor’ s pick of the issue. The study finds that despite spirituality being a central component of occupational therapy models of practice, further research, guidelines, policies and training are needed that applies spirituality to occupational therapy practice.
Research round-up
Kristie Harper and colleagues explore development and initial psychometric properties of the timed upper limb assessment( TULA) in older adults with Parkinson’ s in their research paper.
It adds evidence that TULA provides clinicians with a reliable and validated assessment tool specifically designed for efficiently measuring functional upper limb performance in people with Parkinson’ s.
The role of sensory processing patterns( SPPs) on mental health in healthy adults is explored by Selma Ercan Doğu and Selen Aydoner Bektaş. The results indicate that healthy adults with extreme SPPs may experience mental ill-health issues, and that occupational therapists can assess clients’ unique SPPs and provide tailored strategies to enhance selfawareness of sensory needs and mental health.
Tai Frater et al investigate the acceptability and feasibility of online occupational performance coaching for parents of children with disabilities in the UK. The study adds to the growing evidence base supporting occupational performance coaching as an acceptable and feasible intervention to be delivered online.
Nancy A Baker and colleagues analyse characteristics of immersive virtual reality( IVR) experiences for chronic pain management in assessing the interrater reliability of the Virtual Reality Activity Analysis for Pain instrument( VRAA-Pain).
The research found that IVR is an emerging area in occupational therapy and the VRAA- Pain is the first of its kind of tool that can help occupational therapy practitioners integrate virtual reality experiences into practice.
The association between perceived occupational performance and satisfaction and balance, gait and fear of falling in older adults with mild cognitive impairment is explored by Güllü Aydın-Yağcıoğlu and colleagues.
The study highlights the importance of mobility interventions in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, as improvements in gait may contribute to measures perceived occupational performance.
Finally, Setareh Ghahari et al assess the impact of severity of multiple sclerosis on caregivers’ occupational performance and coping strategies, with the study showing significant impact, informing interventions and policies to improve their wellbeing.
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