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Description
'Occupational Therapy: There Through It All' is a Doctor of Occupational Therapy Capstone project in collaboration with VNA Health at Home in London, Kentucky. The Applied Leadership Experience focused on patients, and their family members or caregivers, receiving home hospice care. The primary ACOTE focus areas were education, advocacy, and clinical practice. The purpose of the project was to facilitate an increased quality of life in home hospice patients by determining the gaps of care present for patients that do not receive occupational therapy (OT) services, provide education about OT’s role in hospice care, and creating educational resources for patients and providers. A comprehensive needs assessment, literature review, and collaboration with the site mentor identified a significant gap in hospice patients receiving occupational therapy services. Many patients or staff members had limited knowledge and understanding about the OT profession and it’s wide scope of practice. Current literature addresses that there is a universal deficiency of understanding the wide scope of practice in OT along with misunderstandings about the PCC and hospice care. This project addressed the identified need of education by sharing student created resources along with other support resources from various associations (American Occupational Therapy Association and National Hospice Association). The Capstone project consisted of interviewing OTs with experience in palliative care including hospice, completing direct patient observations on home health and home hospice case load, educating hospice patients, family/caregivers, and staff, interviewing home hospice patients and family members/caregivers, and creating educational resources for patients and professionals. The project demonstrated positive outcomes by increasing students' ability to accurately define occupational therapy, identify multiple practice settings, describe the role of occupational therapists, and recognize OT as a potential career option. The educational resources developed for the school provide opportunities for continued student learning beyond the completion of the Capstone project. Throughout the Applied Leadership Experience, leadership was demonstrated through collaboration with the site mentor, evidence-based project development, effective communication, and the facilitation of engaging educational experiences tailored creation of educational resources on a topic that is lacking in resources directed towards OT, and providing literature that supports OT within the PCC as an evidence based practice. By addressing the need identified through the literature review and needs assessment, the project supports occupational therapy advocacy and demonstrates the value of OT within the PCC, specifically home hospice care, by bridging the gap of care seen in patients who do not receive OT services.
Graduation Date
2026
Keywords
Hospice care, palliative care, end of life, occupational therapy, quality of life
Disciplines
Occupational Therapy
Degree Type
Book
Site Mentor
Leslie Lahti
Comments
https://youtu.be/OQ6f4UnzLMo