OT Month: celebrate innovation

In celebration of OT Month we are highlighting a partnership that led to an innovative solution. Gloria is a woman living with a progressive muscle disease. Because she had difficulty lifting her legs, her husband needed to help her get in and out of bed. Gloria asked her occupational therapist, Brigita, to help her find a way to get in and out of bed by herself so that her husband could get away for a fishing trip. Brigita explored some options with Gloria. A leg lifting strap didn’t provide enough assistance and the only commercially available electric leg lifter wouldn’t fit on Gloria’s bed. Brigita thought about the Tetra Society. Tetra matches engineer volunteers with people with disabilities to develop an innovative solution to meet the specific need. Two veteran Tetra volunteers accepted the challenge and met with Gloria and Brigita to discuss the problem and to brainstorm solutions. They developed a prototype for Gloria to test. After a few modifications, Gloria had a device that enable her to get in and out of bed by herself and that was small enough to be tucked away out of sight.

Gloria with her new leg lifter prototype.

Gloria was delighted to be independent, her husband was able to go away fishing, and the Tetra volunteers won the Sam Sullivan award, a peer nominated honour, for a solution that supports a person with a disability living in the community to be more independent. To learn more about the work of the Tetra Society, follow the link to http://www.tetrasociety.org/.