Let's decorate some cookies!

    

In my neuro aspects of occupational performance class we have a media project where we were given a random house hold object and a client with a specific diagnosis. The goal of this project is to use creativity and incorporate this item into a functional activity for your client. For my media project,  i had to figure out how to put a sriracha bottle to use in a functional activity for a client with Parkinson’s disease. I first thought of the cardinal signs/symptoms of Parkinson’s disease which are bradykinesia, tremor, rigidity, and postural instability. I read my client’s profile to figure out the daily challenges he faces and his occupational history. After I was done reviewing my client’s information, I started thinking of ways I can use a sriracha bottle to benefit the client and work on specific functions that are meaningful to him. My first thought was to use this bottle for painting or artwork to help with his fine motor control and rigidity, but art did not seem meaningful to him, so I had to keep thinking. I wanted to keep working with fine motor control and maybe help rigidity in his hands because that’s what seems to be where he can function the highest independently. In the client profile I noticed he was able to feed himself finger foods such as cookies. I then had an idea to fill the sriracha bottle with icing and decorate cookies, that he can pick up and feed to himself.  I thought this would be meaningful for him since eating finger foods is one of his ADL’s he can perform independently. Once I had an idea of a functional activity that used the sriracha bottle, I thought of some enhancements to the activity just to make it more personalized for him. Since my client has trouble with his vision, my first enhancement was to color the icing so it would be easier to see on the cookie. The next enhancement I came up with was to use varying size cookies to adjust the challenge and give some variety to the activity. Overall, the goal of this activity is to work on his hand control and help maintain his current ADL of feeding. This is a low impact activity that he can easily do without fatigue and this can be done with others to reduce his isolation.