Overwriting
November 19, 2008
Part of my job as an occupational therapist is simulating real life experiences for patients who struggle with activities or scenerios they once were able to do with ease. For example, putting on a jacket or balancing their checkbooks. Often, it is a very delicate realization for that accountant (who not only balanced his own family books but some large company's books)when he cannot add 13+7 correctly. Sometimes, even simple activities like scanning a menu and tallying up total expenses is incredibly difficult. So on my wild (literally. wild.) escapade of creating new activities to complete with patients, I found myself sitting at my desk typing furiously for two hours. Angela, fellow OT and desk mate, could not have made fun of me more as I pumped out scenario after scenario of functional activities patient's could practice in our clinic.
The worst part is when I lost it. Scenerios usually read something like "You are asleep in bed when the fire alarm goes off. What would you do?" My scenerio read: "It is a Thursday night and you are exhausted after staying up late watching the end of a movie that was too enthralling to turn off. You awake several hours later to blue, orange flames hovering above your rental hospital bed. What would you do?" Okay, so I didn't elaborate that severely but I did go wild with detail. Sometimes, I really am frightened by how little it takes to amuse me. Really. To the point where tears were rolling down my cheeks I was laughing so hard at myself and the cheesiness of writing scenarios as though they are cheap murder mystery novels.
COMMENTS
Michelle said...
While sitting in the relative comfort of soft cotton pajamas and a 25 watt lightbulb I think that your scenarios can never have too much detail or be too specific. After all, as soon as you read a completely generic scenario you think to yourself, "but what if I was up late the night before the fire alarm sounded? or "what if the person behind me at the store is impatient as I am trying to add up the items I want to purchase and I don't know if I really need that extra carton of ice cream? You can bounce these scenarios off of me anytime darling
Lilian said...
that's so awesome that you can come up with so many scenerios...i don't think i'd be able to do that (probably a reason why i'm not in outpatient OT practice)