Era Presentations: My Takeaway

     After listening to different groups present on the individual decades spanning the 1940s-2010s I learned a lot about how great of an impact the outside world has on a field such as occupational therapy. Much of the current OT profession revolves around helping a client with their activities of daily living; I learned this focus came about in the 1950s when Sidney Katz developed the index of independence in activities of daily living. This index, commonly known as the Katz ADL, was the first assessment created for measuring a persons ability to complete activities to live independently, which now serves as a guiding principle for our field.
  One occupation that evolved and continues to evolve is dancing. The style of dance has changed to match the changing trends in music. In the 1940s big bands were the popular music which coincided with swing dancing which was used for leisure and entertainment. In the 1980s there was still dancing for leisure due to MTV, however the style of dance had drastically changed to match the new music styles. There was also a shift to dance based exercise with the fitness craze that occurred in the 1980s.
  I was shocked to hear that in the 1940s an 18 month occupational therapy course was packed into a 2 week course to meet the demands of Occupational Therapists during the war. I also thought it was kinda cool to see learn that USC was the first school to create an Occupational Therapy Masters program in the 1960s, since USC is both of my parents alma mater. In learning about the 1990s I found it interesting that OTs were already integrating computers and technology into their therapy modalities since I always viewed technology as an intervention as more recent and more of a novel concept. I loved seeing how much the profession of Occupational Therapy changed from decade to decade based on what was going on. Occupational therapy serves to meet the needs of the client, looking at what was going on during the decades, it is easier to see how the needs of the client changed and therefore the demands of an Occupational Therapist. This helped highlight the need for individualized approaches based on what the client wants or needs to be able to accomplish. The bottom line is Occupational Therapy is an ever evolving profession.