Your Pen Pal Al

 Paul Erway and his friends, Grant and Aaron, decided to complete a marathon in each of the 50 states. They completed all 50 by wheelchair and decided to document their experiences. Although they documented each race, I decided to focus on their races in Little Rock, AR and Boston, MA.      The Little Rock race took place on March 3rd, 2013. Paul did not participate in this race, but Aaron and Grant described it as especially challenging. This is most likely due to the fact that they were completing back-to-back marathons with very little sleep. I can only imagine how exhausting one marathon is, much less two in two days! Grant described the race as a constant uphill. He could not recall any of the downs. As someone who attended undergrad just outside of Little Rock, I am very familiar with the city's steep hills. Last week, our class participated in a wheelchair lab. During this lab, we practiced propelling ourselves up the inclines of our campus' parking garage. Th...

This is my classmate and friend Pinal. Ironically, she exemplified poor posture while studying for our Biomechanics class.  Yogis in training!  My cousin, Aniston, preparing to hit a home-run!        Since I love softball and played for many years, I thought it would be fitting to analyze my cousin's batting stance. In this photo, her pelvis is slightly tilted posteriorly. This tilt along with flexion at the hip joint causes excessive lengthening of the lower back muscles and shortening of the anterior abdominal muscles. In regards to spinal curvature, there is decreased lumbar lordosis and increased thoracic kyphosis. The scapulae are on line with the spine, and the head is rotated and anteriorly shifted in relation to the spine. The left femur is slightly internally rotated, and the right femur is slightly externally rotated.      Aniston's feet are wider than her shoulders, increasing her base of support. An increased base of support incre...

 

      Our eyes are the windows for our brain. Along with our other senses, vision allows our mind to interpret the world around us.       It is often said that "seeing is believing." We create our own reality and believe what we create. With that being said, vision is not objective truth. Instead, it is subjective and personal.  A prime and popular example of this comes from an online debate in 2015. A photo of a dress was posted on the internet and people argued whether it was "gold and white" or "black and blue." This debate went viral fairly quickly and caused quite a bit of uproar. This debacle proved humans have individual differences in perception. Usually, these differences are slight, but in this scenario, they were seemingly large. After reading the article " The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress," I've come to understand that the differences in dress color come from focusing on a dark or light background. Peopl...

 Have you ever made a bet that your regretted? A soldier from the short story "Man of the South" bet his very own pinky finger. In fact, his exact words were "Come to think of it, I can't remember ever in my life having had any use for the little finger on my left hand."       Believe it or not, the pinky finger plays a large role in many daily activities. A total of nine muscles control the pinky finger, allowing it to flex, extend, adduct, and abduct.  The largest impact would come from loss of grip strength. Specifically for the solider, he would experience difficulty holding heavy artillery and equipment for long periods of time. He may also experience difficulty in getting dressed and tying/untying his shoes. Lastly, he may experience difficulty in writing, typing, and holding utensils. Nevertheless, there are many effective tools and strategies an OT could implement into the soldier's recovery program.      One example of adaptive equip...