Neuro Note 2
For my second neuro note, I chose to watch a TED talk entitled END ALS: Hiro Fujita at TEDxTokyo2014. This TED talk tells the story of a young man named Hiro Fujita, who was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Watching this was not only informative about the progression from diagnosis to living with the disease, but it also helped provide an insight on how this man has reacted to his circumstances. I chose to view this specific TED talk because I know that we will be learning about ALS soon, and I think seeing a personal example helps me to center the diagnosis around OT, and the people that I will eventually be working with. Though this video was only about 15 minutes long, it had an extremely strong impact on me both as a person and as a practitioner. First, Hiro continued to speak about how he was 99% happy with his life. This is something that partially surprised me, but also amazed me as well. With a diagnosis as difficult as ALS, it would be easy for a person to want to be completely bitter or distraught, but this man was neither. For this reason, I would recommend this video to any clients that I come into contact with who might be facing this diagnosis, or a similar one.
As a practitioner, I think this also has an important message, and would recommend it to my other classmates, and others in the field of OT as well for several reasons. First, because Hiro comes from Japanese culture, which is different from what Western culture is like. This impacts his feelings on the medical system, and even life itself. His goals in life are to promote the end of ALS by encouraging clinical trials, which can be applicable in all cultures, but is extremely important to him because of his background. This is an important reminder, both to me as an OT and to others in the field to be client-centered. Even more so, my main takeaway from this video was Hiro's goal-centeredness. He stated that his diagnosis, rather than making him want to die, made him want to do even more and achieve even more. When I have clients in the future, I hope that this is the type of attitude I can encourage in them so that they see that they are so much more than their diagnosis, and that they can still live life to the fullest, even when circumstances are tough.
References:
As a practitioner, I think this also has an important message, and would recommend it to my other classmates, and others in the field of OT as well for several reasons. First, because Hiro comes from Japanese culture, which is different from what Western culture is like. This impacts his feelings on the medical system, and even life itself. His goals in life are to promote the end of ALS by encouraging clinical trials, which can be applicable in all cultures, but is extremely important to him because of his background. This is an important reminder, both to me as an OT and to others in the field to be client-centered. Even more so, my main takeaway from this video was Hiro's goal-centeredness. He stated that his diagnosis, rather than making him want to die, made him want to do even more and achieve even more. When I have clients in the future, I hope that this is the type of attitude I can encourage in them so that they see that they are so much more than their diagnosis, and that they can still live life to the fullest, even when circumstances are tough.
References:
(2014, June 07). Retrieved April 17, 2018, from https://youtu.be/FIBmKX4UnaE
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