Dr. Guy McCormack, PhD., OTR/L, FAOTA, an occupational therapist and retired academic program director based in Seaside, California, provided the cover art for Summer 2023 edition of The Open Journal Occupational Therapy (OJOT). “Tree Life” is a 20” x 24” painting made from acrylic on panel. McCormack has served as educator nearly 50 years. His career includes many notable clinical achievements...

Occupational therapists' use of goal statements during interactions with patients can extend far beyond the care-planning session. Each treatment session provides an opportunity to match goals decided upon by the patient and therapist with a structured activity, thus endowing that activity with a therapeutic purpose. This article presents a rationale for discussing with patients the purpose and...

Dr. Lori Reynolds has an interest in therapeutic gardens and the creation of living spaces that promote wellbeing for older adults. Dr. Reynolds educates various stakeholders on the benefits of occupational therapy, including landscape architects and senior living administrators. Her advocacy to expand occupational therapy beyond its mainstream roles is infectious. She speaks passionately about...

The consensus within our profession is that the fieldwork experience plays an integral role in an occupational therapist's professional development. In 1923, the first educational standards requiring fieldwork experiences were approved by the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) Today, in addition to academic course work, 6 months of supervised fieldwork is a required prerequisite f...

This research examines the lived experiences of six novice occupational therapists (0-2 years experience) and eight career occupational therapists (> or = 5 years in the everyday practice in adult rehabilitation. The study focused specifically on therapists' experiences of working together with patients and the ways in which these experiences unfolded over the course of therapy. Data were gener...

INTRODUCTION We tracked and analyzed the changes in the quality of life (QOL) of a stage 4 lung cancer patient receiving occupational therapy at home. CASE DESCRIPTION In a longitudinal study consisting of 4 evaluations over 9 months, a 66-year-old female with lung cancer was assessed using the Philadelphia Geriatric Center (PGC) Morale Scale and the 100-Point Satisfaction Scale. The QOL scor...

The purposes of this paper are two. The first purpose is to contribute to cultural competence in occupational therapy practice. The second is to contribute to occupational therapy literature about culture and cultural analysis related to practice. This paper introduces a cultural analysis of stories about the therapeutic process with two Japanese therapists and their Japanese patients. Two ther...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether 155 ethnically diverse clients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke (cerebrovascular accident; CVA) who received occupational therapy services perceived that they reached self-identified goals related to tasks of daily life as measured by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). This study found that a statistically and cli...

Jen Gash, an occupational therapist and creativity coach living in the UK, provided the cover art for the winter 2015 issue of The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy. The picture is titled “Over the Exe.” Jen uses her inspiration of the Kawa River model in this painting. The painting is of her husband and daughter standing where the river meets the sea. This is a metaphoric representation of ...

"Intraprofessional Team BUilding" in the September 1987 issue (pp. 576582) was a pertinent and stimulating article ro me. Our Psychosocial Occupational Therapy Department at Christ Hospital and Medical Center consists of seven occu pational therapists (OTRs) and nine occupational therapy assistants (COTAs) who work together on occupational therapy teams. A typical team includes one therapist as...