7- FOXcast OT: Elin Schold Davis, OTR/L, CDRS, FAOTA

Elin: “We are really trying to help people live the life they want to live or as our AOTA tagline is: Living Life To Its Fullest.

Jimmy: This is FOXcast OT, a podcast for clinicians made by clinicians. It’s brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation. Find out more at foxrehab.org.

Welcome to FOXcast OT. I’m your host Jimmy McKay and we are still at AOTA Salt Lake City 2018 and I’m joined with…

Elin: Elin Schold Davis

Jimmy: Elin, thanks for taking some time out to talk with us.

Elin: Thank you for having me.

Jimmy: What’s your background when did you start with this profession?

Elin: Well, I’ve been an OT for a long time. I went to occupational therapy school. I graduated in 1980. Over the years of working in adult rehab working with largely brain injury and minor brain injury in its very early days before it was recognized like it is today. I also recognize that we didn’t know how to address cognitive impairment and figure out how much that affected people’s capacity to drive safely. And so I got myself interested in that probably in about the mid-90s and then since the early 2000s I’ve been working with AOTA and funded through NHTSA the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, largely to be really looking at increasing our profession’s capacity to address the broad needs of older drivers.

Jimmy: So you really honed in on us a specific niche area in occupational therapy being driving.

Elin: Actually an occupational therapy being the instrumental activity of daily living of mobility. Driving is one form of mobility.

Jimmy: So what’s something the audience who works with older adults what are some things that those occupational therapist need to focus on with that aspect of someone’s life mobility.

Elin: I think we have to really think about that driving and community mobility getting out of your house is part of an instrumental activity of daily living. We think too often focus on getting people home and we put a lot of work into grab bars and stair lifts and we don’t make sure they can get out of their house and safely into their car whether the driver or the passenger and access the mobility options so they can safely get where they want to go.

Jimmy: Because out there that’s where life is. That’s really what we want you to be.

Elin: And how many of you want to be sentenced to being given your mobility is you can call this medical ride two days ahead and you have a two hour window and that becomes your mobility to get out of your house. There is report after report that describes it stranded without options. People are feeling abandoned when they get home. So us in the rehab professions need to own mobility outside of the house and we need to make sure we have players in our team that can be looking at what people’s needs are what their support systems are and really build that community mobility into our discharge planning.

Jimmy: Older adults face medical issues. One of them that we should really focus on preventing becoming a larger issue is lack of socialization because that can lead to depression and taking away that mobility can lead to that.

Elin: You know is so well put. Sometimes we can be too quick on the trigger. You have somebody who looks slow in their processing they’ve got problems. And we you know we do we jump to stopping their driving. We jump to thinking they need to be tested and take their license. You know they might have lost their wife last week their diabetes might be kind of wacky and they’re working on their medications. We have to really make sure that we think of driving as something that we want to be as passionate about preserving as we want to preserve mobility within the house.

Jimmy: All the things you can be saying no to if you take that away.

Elin: Many things we have many stories of people that’s happened to. I have many stories of people that I’ve talked to that have come to me through different pathways I’m sad to say than through their therapy they’ve been involved in car fits as one of our projects that has reached out to the public.

Jimmy: Let’s talk about that.

Elin: OK. Car fit it is an education program that was developed collaboratively between AOTA, AAA and AARP.

Jimmy: That’s a great perfect storm.

Elin: It’s a fabulous collaboration. And one of the cool things about the collaboration is everybody committed to being about people’s safety. It’s not about selling any of our own wares. It’s a free 20 minute check at your car. And we really look to OT’s and PT’s and speech pathologist and people in the health care field to help volunteer at this community event. It’s a wonderful opportunity to tell people what we think is fairly basic information but good to know. But we also provide one on one. And you know people’s car is a bit of a personal space. We lean into their open window. We talk to them about their positioning. We give them some suggestions and explain how things are designed to work and we show them that we care.

Jimmy: And you mentioned the education component. And you know going through school learning things I thought it was kind of a throwaway. My professors would say, “Education is so important, so important.” And then I went out and so of my rotations and figured out, oh I’m dealing with human beings and this stuff I know I could barely get it out and give it to them because it’s really valuable because they’re gonna eventually leave me there. They’re not going to be in front of me 24 hours a day. So for you guys to offer that program with a little bit of knowledge can go a long way.

Elin: Absolutely. It plants a seed for people. It introduces us. Plus we are good. We are trained at helping talk to the public about things that might be a little bit sensitive we’re not challenging their knowledge we’re not saying you know how to drive a car. We’re stepping in with them and saying have you ever wondered about why your seatbelt is bothering you on your neck? Can we see if we can figure out a solution. And there are adjustments within the vehicle that help that happen. And also for car fit I have to add that one of the reasons we created it is seniors are being disproportionately injured in low speed crashes. In other words they have a lot to gain from wearing their seat belts and sitting properly as in the seats as the safety features were designed for younger and we break a little bit we heal if we’re in our 80s and 90s and we break a few ribs or we break a hip. It has a much more significant impact on the next decade of our life.

Jimmy: Yeah that little bit goes a long way. You know we always say hindsight is 20/20, if you only knew if we just change this one thing and you know those three organizations including the AOTA is looking forward and saying we do know this let’s get this out and make sure we can get it into your into your cars and your lives before that thing ever happens. It’s great.

Elin: That’s right. It is. It’s a great program.

Jimmy: What are some things that you’ve done here at 88 this year in Salt Lake City that really made you pay attention that you enjoyed?

Elin: Well it’s just wonderful to network with a lot of the different people that come talking with students the future of our profession talking with practitioners who are interested in thinking about you know driving and communicability which is my niche. The things I’m talking about. We also have guest speakers here from. We have Dr. Ann Dellinger here from CDC really supporting the kind of work we’re doing and helping us think about the importance of looking at the public health side of our work. And that we are really trying to help people live the life they want to live or is our AOTA tagline is living life to its fullest.

Jimmy: I love that I love the way you put that. It’s we have a tradition on the show here. It’s called Your FOXtale. Why did you start working with older adults specifically what brought you to that?

Elin: I love engaging with people and working with common goals to figure out what people need. I always think OT is part of the puzzle. I sometimes say we try to help people figure out what they’re going to do with kind of we’ve restored everything we can. We fixed everything we can. And now what are we going to do? We’ve still got a few things broken. And I love the problem solving and working together with people to figure out how they’re going to be able to do the things they want to do

Jimmy: The creativity it has to be able to get them to be able to do those things. Like everything you said revolved around people, driving program. You said those three companies coming together to make sure this wasn’t about selling something or pitching something it was about the people. Know I asked you what you love about AOTA and the conference here and you said the people and that’s what you get when you come to a major conference no matter what therapy discipline you’re in. You get the same feeling that it’s about people and when you get a bunch of therapist together what do they talk about: therapy. So to share those ideas amongst people of the same mindset or even better of different mindsets and you can learn something new. What would you say to someone who hasn’t been to the national conference yet before and listening to the show. Why they should come?

Elin: Well I think if you’re able to come it’s a real opportunity to be inspired maybe even like our keynote speaker. You know you can talk to people who talk your language. And I think that you can feel good about some of the things that we’re able to do and get some ideas to take yourself to another step. Find yourself a niche that you can challenge yourself to do just a little bit more. And I think conference really gives you an opportunity to do that.

Jimmy: I love that very much. Elin appreciate your time here at this very busy conference with the AOTA. Thank you.

Elin: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Jimmy: Thanks for listening to FOXcast OT a clinically excellent podcast is brought to you by FOX Rehabilitation listen to other episodes or read articles and position papers at foxrehab.org.