This project sought to engage patients, care partners, and OTPs in collaborative and personalized education using outcome measures in the acute care setting.
Marisa K. Monbrod, OTDS
Faculty Mentor: Lisa Knecht-Sabres, DHS, OTR/L
Site Mentor: Cassandra Thelen, OTD, OTR/L
School: Midwestern University
Setting and Location: Acute Care at MD Anderson Cancer Center
Virtual / In-person / Hybrid: In-person
Purpose: The intent of this project was to better understand the value of occupation in promoting performance, participation, health, and well-being. This project focused
on melding together the subjective experiences and symptoms that are common in cancer patients with activity analysis and modifications to daily activities to
promote goal attainment and to ease the transition into the home and community environments.
Method/Design/Approach: Program development/enhancement utilizing the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale, Patient Specific Functional Scale, and Modified Caregiver Strain Index. Two educational sessions were provided with consultation based on patient needs; the first was while they were inpatient and the second was over the phone after discharge.
Results/Outcomes: From the total data sets collected, 23 patients had decreases in physical, cognitive, and psychosocial related fatigue and were able to increase their perceived performance level with goals they set. Results of outcome measures revealed that this project greatly benefited patients, care partners, and clinicians.
Conclusions: Stem cell patient attainment of goals were achieved by personalized education on environmental modifications and adaptations to daily activities. The creation and distribution of educational materials facilitated application of various strategies to enhance occupational participation.
Ideas for next steps to build on this topic: Implementing with more oncology populations, having a research project that looked at least number of visits needed to show change, Addressing caregiver needs beyond the screen used, implementing into standard of care as a protocol to follow up with education post discharge.
2-3 tips for students undertaking a similar project:
- Make sure to realize that the oncology population are all at different stages of coming to terms with their diagnosis
- Be ready to explain the differences between a research project and a program development project, be flexible with every patient
- You might have a bunch of handouts but they might not want to look at them and that is okay!
Deliverables: mmonbrod-Capstone final report.docx - Google Docs
