Occupation

Abstracts Thursday 30th June 2016
children with autism spectrum disorder.Infants and Young
Children ,16 (4), 296–316
Keywords
Children and families, Service improvement or transformation,
Interdisciplinary practice, Inter-agency
Contact E-mail Addresses
diana.pierags@gmx.com
Author Biographies
• Currently working as Band 7 Paediatric OT in Community
Children ‘s Center
• Pathway lead for Mainstream coordination and Sensory
pathway
• Currently completing Masters of advancing practice in OT
(Ulster University, part time)
• Studied in University College Cork, Ireland (Hons BSc
Occupational therapy – 4 years)
• Diploma in Sensory Integration (modules 1–4, 2 research
modules)
• Bobath modular completed
• SAMPS trained
• Born in Germany, lived in Ireland for 6 years, now in the UK
for the last 5 years
Session 61.3
The lived experience of parents whose children are
deafblind: an occupational perspective
Sugarman C, Kramer-Roy D, Brunel University
This study explores the lived experience of parents whose
children are deafblind and examines whether it can be
considered a meaningful occupation. The number of people who
are deafblind is growing (Robertson and Emerson 2010), as are
the number of parent-carers, yet deafblind research traditionally
follows a medical model, focusing on older people (Brennan et
al. 2005). Parents whose children are deafblind have not been
consulted about their own experiences, despite family-centred
practice playing parents central to a child’s care, and legislation
and policy which aims to protect carers’ needs and recognise
their vital role (Department of Health 2009). This research begins
to address this gap in knowledge.
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to explore
the experience of four parents whose children are deafblind,
using semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Parents were
recruited through Sense UK, with Brunel University granting
ethical approval.
Analysis produced five main themes alongside extracts from
the interviews: The moment of diagnosis – Isn’t quite what
I expected, Working and self-preservation – A little bit of
normality back, Learning to manage – It can be rewarding in and
of itself to have a disabled child, The tough times – It’s so far
away from normal, and What deafblindness really means – If you
have multisensory loss [it] becomes really difficult.
The findings demonstrated how turbulent the parenting
experience was for these parents. Traditional mothering roles
were often lost, although new roles developed that could
provide them with a purposeful and often fulfilling parenting
experience. The findings have implications for both family
centred practice and occupational science theory.
Recommendations for further research include: repeat studies
to strength validity longitudinal studies to capture the life-long
parenting experience and action research to develop a parentprofessional
support group.
References
Brennan M, Horowitz A, Su Y (2005) Dual sensory loss and its
impact on everyday competence. Gerontologist, 45(3), 337–46.
Department of Health (2009) Social care for deafblind children
and adult. Department of Health.
Robertson J, Emerson E (2010) Estimating the Number of People
with Co-occuring,Vision and Hearing Impairments in the UK.
Centre of Disability Research, 1.
Keywords
Children and families, Research, Occupational science
Contact E-mail Addresses
claresugarman@gmail.com
Author Biographies
Since graduating as an occupational therapist from
Southampton University in 2008, Clare Sugarman has worked
within a wide range of settings, including adult mental
health, adult learning disabilities and paediatrics. It was whilst
working at a specialist school for visually impaired students
with additional needs that Clare developed an interest in
deafblindness.
Clare has recently completed a Masters at Brunel University for
which she had to undertake a research project and was able to
explore the area of deafblindness further. The findings of this
study constitute the content of her presentation at the College
of Occupational Therapists Conference 2016. Since finishing
her Masters, Clare now works as an occupational therapist at
Great Ormond Street Hospital within the Infection, Cancer and
Immunity devision.
Debbie Kramer-Roy was the supervisor for this research
project. Debbie graduated as an occupational therapist in the
Netherlands in 1989, and has worked in both the UK and
Pakistan since then. She has mainly worked in paediatrics, and
in Pakistan she has worked in community-based rehabilitation
and as a lecturer in teacher education on the topic of Inclusive
Education at the Aga Khan University Institute for Educational
Development. In 2006 Debbie returned to England to start her
PhD studies at Brunel University. In 2011 she was appointed as a
lecturer at Brunel.
Trauma and Orthopaedics Annual Conference
Session 62.1
Development of an ICF rehabilitation framework for
patients with major trauma
Hoffman K, Queen Mary University London
Background: Measurement of rehabilitation need and
rehabilitation outcome after trauma remains non-standardised
and ambiguous limiting national and international comparison
of burden of injuries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has
recommended the application of the International Classification
of Function, Disability and Health (ICF) in rehabilitation. This
study aims to identify a minimum ICF data set of important
rehabilitation categories to report and measure function in
patients who sustain major traumatic injuries.
Methods: Mixed methods were used to investigate patient and
health care professionals (HCPs) perspectives of rehabilitation
needs and priorities after traumatic injury. Meaning
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