Group Help: 5 Professionals That Assist with Physical Limitation

For those with physical limitations, it is not enough just to have a family physician. A team of medical professionals is required to maintain the best quality of life or to see improvements in these limitations. Whether the initial cause was a traumatic accident, a chronic or congenital condition, or another situation, they need a treatment team to manage the different facets of their condition.

 

 

Who makes up this group?

Many are therapists of various types. Others are from disparate backgrounds. All of them can be necessary, depending on a patient’s individual situation.

Physical Therapists

Physical therapists concentrate on physical well-being and health. They provide rehabilitation, composed primarily of guided exercises to strengthen limbs or prevent loss of muscle mass in those confined to wheelchairs. To become a physical therapist, a post-graduate degree is typically required, along with certification, usually at the state level.

 

Occupational Therapist

Similar to physical therapy, occupational therapy is more goal-oriented. The primary motivation is to give patients the ability to do things for themselves, including everyday activities that may be difficult for them. Becoming an occupational therapist requires a graduate degree, like those offered through the OTD graduate programs, found at RMUoHP.com, along with state-level certification.

 

Home Care Aides

For those who cannot do many common household tasks without assistance, home health care aides provide that assistance, along with monitoring medication or vital signs. Primarily, they assist with chores, like cleaning and cooking, along with helping with dressing or bathing, for those who can’t do it alone. They can also drive them to appointments. Home health cares aids typically do not require any special education; however, certification is sometimes required.

 

Medical Social Worker

These are specialized social workers who assist patients with managing their affairs, including help finding financial assistance, understanding benefits information, and helping maintain quality of life for those patients without family to assist them. Most social workers have a bachelor’s degree, but having a master’s degree can be helpful as well. Licensing varies by state.

 

Counseling Psychologist

For those who are emotionally affected by their condition, counseling psychologists can give them a person they can talk to about their feelings and explore how to adapt to their limitations and future prospects. Counseling psychologists typically have a graduate degree in their field and are licensed by the state where they practice.

 

It takes a lot of people to provide quality care to patients with physical limitations. This team can determine the quality of life for someone who depends on their advice, instruction, and therapeutic methods, and make a genuine difference in their potential recovery and future.

Categories: care aides, counseling psychologists, graduate degree, home health, limitation, occupational therapist, physical, physical limitations, physical therapists, Professionals

Fad Dieting as Seen by Professionals

Whether you follow them or not, fad diets are unmistakably on the rise around the world. Whilst longstanding weight loss companies like Weight Watchers are still turning an excellent profit, many of us looking to shed the pounds are turning to the diets that are so regularly splashed across the covers of magazines, endorsed by celebrities and promoted by friend-of-a-friend anecdotes. In fact, as the media and word-of-mouth is such an important factor in the spread of these diets, oftentimes the science behind them falls into insignificance.

With this in mind, online doctor and pharmacist Chemist Direct consulted dieting professionals from a range of disciplines to ascertain their views on the fad diets du jour and see if their popularity is justified.

 

Texan dietitian Megan Ware’s biggest gripe with fad diets is that they give dieters the impression that they will be able to maintain their weight loss:

“Fad diets only work in the short term, not for long term loss. Most people go back to their old eating habits once they get tired of dieting. Of course you are going to lose weight following that plan when you’re probably taking in less than 1000 calories per day.”

 

Registered Bariatric Dietitian Lori Rosenthal supported Megan’s viewpoint, stressing that stark changes to one’s diet are inevitably unsustainable in the long run:

 

“The best way to go about losing weight and keeping it off is to make one or two healthy changes at a time, only adding another once the first has become part of your routine and you enjoy it. If you feel restricted or deprived the change won’t last”.

 

But changing one’s routine, that is, one’s day to day behaviour is easily talked about but less easily put into action. Luckily, Lou Ryan, a behavioural therapist, was at hand to give some perspective to why dieting doesn’t work on a psychological level:

 

“Diets are not an effective long-term solution because they target the symptoms (i.e. unwanted eating behaviours) using willpower instead of dealing with the root cause of those unwanted behaviours (i.e. the subconscious thought process that creates food cravings).”

 

So, it would appear that the most important aspect of successful weight loss is targeting unwanted eating behaviours in a slow, methodical process, rather than simply depriving your body of nutrients and waiting for it to reduce in mass.

 

Whilst many dieticians and therapists will have their own plans for achieving this, I personally found Joseph Grenny, author of New York Times bestseller Change Anything, to have the most easily digestible approach. He proposes a five part plan for changing unwanted eating behaviours:

 

1. Change your impulses: Change the way you think about what you currently consider to be unpleasant behaviours. Create a Personal Motivation Statement on a 3×5 card that connects to your values, and read the card when you feel tempted to quit.

2. Learn the weight loss skills you lack: Losing weight requires skills, not just will. For example, when facing temptation our research shows people who learn a couple of simple skills are 50% better at resisting their urges.

3. Turn accomplices into friends: Don’t underestimate the power of your peers. For example, Harvard sociologist Nicholas Christakis discovered that obesity is partly infectious. Having obese friends increases your chances of following suit by a whopping 75%.

4. Get a coach or mentor: Coaches are crucial to behaviour change success. People with half a dozen active friends who play the role of coach or mentor are almost 40% more likely to succeed than those with less than a half dozen friends.

5. Reward small successes: Give yourself a small reward for reaching short-term goals. For example, if you give up fizzy dinks, set aside the £2 per day you save and do something meaningful when you reach £100.

 

The problem, however, is that the majority of dieters are still fixated on quick results for little or no effort. This may pay dividends if you just plan to lose weight for a particular special occasion like a holiday, but the path to true wellness unfortunately is going to take a lot more effort.

Categories: eating behaviours, Fad Dieting, Fad Diets, Long term, Lose weight, Losing Weight, Professionals, short term, unwanted eating, weight, Weight Loss