Occupation

Abstracts Thursday 30th June 2016
Keywords
End of life care, Research, Practice – present and future, NHS
Contact E-mail Addresses
Helene.hibbert@rmh.nhs.uk
Author Biographies
Helene Hibbert is an Occupational Therapist has been working
as a Lecturer Practitioner at The Royal Marsden School for
four years. With multi-professional colleagues, I am involved
in educating Nurses and Allied Health Professionals in postregistrations
specialised modules and programmes focused on
cancer, palliative care, research and long term conditions.
These subjects reflect my clinical interests and experience, having
previously worked for some years in specialist Palliative Care
Teams in Acute Hospital and Hospice and prior to this, in surgical
and orthopaedic units.
I have a Masters Degree in Research Methodology and a
Teaching PGDip.
Jill Cooper MBE, is Head Occupational Therapist at The Royal
Marsden Hospital Foundation Trust, leading and developing this
service over a number of years. I have been a member of the OT
community, editing several well known books, and contributing
to book chapters and papers on the role of OT in oncology
and palliative care. I have participated in a number of roles for
COT Special interest group (HOPC), helping to coordinate and
contribute to policy and development responses locally and
nationally.
I have a Masters Degree in Cancer Care and was awarded an
MBE for services to OT in Oncology.
Session 56a.2
Empowering patient choice and decision making at
the end of life
Caudren H, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation
Trust
The Department of Health End of Life Strategy (DH 2012)
acknowledged that given the choice, people would rather die in
their own homes surrounded by loved ones and familiar objects.
Occupational therapists (OTs) play a key role within palliative care
to help patients remain at home and to maintain an achievable
level of independence in activities which they have identified as
meaningful to them.
OTs may prescribe equipment to compensate for loss of function,
strength or to improve safety and psychological wellbeing of
the individual. The OT usually has to describe accurately the
size, shape and operational function of the equipment and rely
on the individual ‘imagining’ how the equipment would look in
their home and impact on family life/routine.
To empower patients and increase informed choice and
psychological wellbeing, a service improvement initiative was
developed to enable patients and carers to watch videos of how
prescribed equipment works, how it is operated and to visualise
how it would fit into their home. Videos were developed to
demonstrate the use of common pieces of equipment and
these, in addition to photographs of all the equipment available
through statutory services, were downloaded onto a tablet. The
tablet was then utilised by the OT during the initial interview
and subsequent visits to allow patients and carers to select the
equipment identified by the OT as meeting their needs.
This paper will present the results of the evaluation. Data was
gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire given to the
patients and carer during the first 12 months of the project,
to identify if the project has increased their satisfaction with
the service and has increased their involvement in the decision
making process regarding equipment.
Ethical approval was not required for this service improvement
project. The questionnaire was approved by the Trust’s clinical
effectiveness team.
This project was supported by a Macmillan Service Development
Grant of £1,000.
References
Department of Health (2012) End of Life Strategy: Fourth Annual
Report. London: Department of Health
Keywords
End of life care, Service improvement or transformation,
Innovative practice, NHS
Contact E-mail Addresses
helen.caudren@nhs.net
Author Biographies
I am Macmillan occupational therapist within the specialist
palliative care team in Stockton on Tees.
Session 56a.3
Keeping the name alive: the occupation of starting a
charity after the loss of a child
Carruthers J, Northumbria University
It is generally accepted that grief can affect both a person’s
physical health and mental wellbeing (Costello, 2012).
Bereavement may also affect a person’s roles, routines and
identity. These are all key concerns of occupational therapists yet
to date grief and bereavement have received very little attention
from a specifically occupational perspective (e.g. Hoppes and
Segal, 2010).
Occupational therapists will inevitably meet people who are
grieving, wherever they work, and a better understanding of
how loss and occupation are related could help them better
support these clients. Extending understanding could also
highlight areas for further research to develop occupational
assessments or interventions for loss, and may generate
evidence to support a new role for OT in bereavement care. This
Masters’ project was seen as one step towards increasing this
understanding.
Method: The project focused on mothers’ experiences and
understandings of the occupation of starting a charity after
the loss of a child. This narrow focus was deemed appropriate
given the exploratory aims and time constraints. Ethical approval
was obtained from the student’s university ethics panel. Semistructured
interviews were conducted with four mothers and
thematic analysis used to identify key themes.
Findings: Running a charity was described by the mothers as a
way of doing, being, becoming and belonging (Wilcock, 2006)
in a world turned upside down by the loss of their child. They
described the occupation as keeping a continuing presence of
the child in their life and giving meaning to what they had been
through. This fits with contemporary grief models, which identify
continuing bonds and meaning-making as important for healthy
grieving (Neimeyer and Sands, 2011). The occupation also
helped mothers look forward and provided a sense of purpose,
pride and achievement, which impacted on their wellbeing.
This paper will discuss the findings of the project as they relate
to occupational science.
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