Sensation – playing with it

How much do you know about your own individual sense of touch? Do you like to touch the same types of foods as others do? Sorry, I should say, do you like to eat the same types of foods as others do? Or do you have personal preferences. Do you like really hot spicy things or do you prefer bland tasteless foods. What country are you from? What type of cooking or meals are you usually exposed to? Who eats a standard meat and 3 veg?

 

For kids who ‘need’ sensory ‘stuff’. Have you ever tried giving them a range of different similar materials all in one sitting, one after the other and getting them to talk about what they like and don’t like? What their favourites are? Can you get them to use different types of words to talk about it? What did you learn from that?

    

 

Example container with different types to try all one after each other:

 

Whats your own ‘sensation’ like? Your own awareness of your own sensation of things touching your skin? Can you tell if your pants are too tight at the waist? Or do you end up with red marks at the end of the day? Socks too tight? Shoes too tight? Do you notice if your skin gets scratched? Did you know that you were bleeding? Do you know that your nose is dripping and kind of snotty? Did you know that your hair was out of place – could you feel it not sitting well or in the way you had first put it? Are you able to block out the issue of having a fringe on your forehead or does it constantly bother you? The pressure underneath your nails when something gets stuck under there – do you notice it, does it bother you? Did you notice that your skin was peeling when you got sunburnt? Or your lips were chapped? Or did someone else need to tell you.

 

References materials for the scope of sensation within Occupational Therapy:

Desensitisation with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome – RSDSA

2 point discrimination (moving)

Sensory OT Assessments – Semmes-Weinstein, two-point discrimination, tuning forks

OT and PT in paediatric Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome – Kimberley Boullard, OTR/L

 

Examples of language between patient and Occupational Therapist:

Helen Hayes Hospital: Occupational Therapy restores arm function after stroke