Innovation Project : Cereal Box to Card Holder

    As a future occupational therapist there could be times where we may not have access to specific resources or interventions. As an OT it is important that we adapt and create our own assistive devices to best help our clients. It is also important to think about how functional and accessible something is as well as incorporating what is meaningful to the client. For our Neuro Aspects class, we were assigned to make an assistive device out of household items for our client with a diagnosis we have discussed in class. My assigned items were a cereal box, construction paper, and an empty ketchup bottle. My assigned condition is ALS, also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, which is progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and result in the "wasting away" of muscles controlling voluntary movement in the body. 

    My client was Susan who is a 55 year old woman with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. She is currently in the acute care hospital with pneumonia and worsening mobility status. Susan's symptoms include muscle weakness and fatigue and she currently needs help opening food packages. For her occupations, Susan enjoys watching TV, shopping, playing cards, and scrapbooking. I wanted to focus on how I could adapt playing card games for Susan. 

    For my intervention, I folded a cereal box in the shape of a triangle and I made slots out of construction paper for Susan's cards. Because Susan has challenges with muscle weakness and fatigue, it might be difficult for her to maintain a sustained contraction holding her cards in her hands. With my intervention, she will be able to conserve some of her energy as her cards will be propped up and displayed for her. 

    If I were to use this assistive device for another client, there are many ways I can change it to fit the client's needs or give them the "just right" challenge. I could create loops to put on the side of the box so the client could hold the box if they wanted to. It would require less fine motor skills to hold larger objects than holding all of the cards. I could use this intervention to work on fine motor skills (pinching, grasping, etc.) by placing the cards in the slots and removing them with different grasps.