
Students will be able to appreciate the scale of unpaid family caregiving in the United States, its justification as a public health issue, and occupational therapy's role in assessment and intervention in the support of caregivers and their care recipients.
Students will be able to identify the conceptual foundations supporting the role of occupational therapy within the caregiving space for healthcare service delivery, as well as how my experience connected to Drake University's OTD program themes. Students will be provided an introduction to the VA Caregiver Support Program--the purpose, services, and eligibility process.
Students will appreciate the scale and impact of military caregiving within the United States through observations of key statistics relevant to occupational therapy and allied health professionals.
Students will receive an introduction to the Campaign for Inclusive Care, an initiative to improve health care quality through more purposeful recognition of caregivers within the healthcare team. Additionally, students will be able to learn about the level and quality of caregiver interactions among rehabilitation professionals within the Central Iowa VA via a mixed-methods survey. Functional cognition screening is introduced as an ancillary project inspired by my work with another VA OT. Collectively my activities reflect my achievements in demonstrating professionalism, advocacy skill, and ethical behavior in influencing positive change with clients, communities, and the profession.
Students will become familiar with the Veteran Functional Assessment Instrument (VFAI) and a cursory appreciation for how to deliver quality administration. Students will be able to take a brief 4 questions quiz testing their retention of the entirety of the lectures. References and Acknowledgements are shared.
This course offers a series of lectures highlighting primarily the presenter's work in the Central Iowa VA Caregiver Support Program as a clinical assessor of the Veteran Functional Assessment Instrument. Additional features include an introduction to caregiving as a public health issue, military caregiving statistics, an explanation of advocacy and program development efforts through discussion of the Campaign for Inclusive Care, and survey results on caregiver interactions among Central Iowa VA rehabilitation staff. Participants enrolled will be able to 1) Identify the key piece of legislation that led to the recent expansion of the VA Caregiver Support Program, 2) Understand the Veteran Functional Assessment Instrument (VFAI) as an important piece of the Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC) and its criteria, 3) Recognize the Campaign for Inclusive Care as national effort to increase the involvement of caregivers within the medical team’s approach to Veteran care, and 4) Appreciate the findings of a questionnaire surveying the therapy staff of the Central Iowa VA Hospital System on their level of caregiver involvement. The course further demonstrates occupational therapy’s key role within the caregiving support space by recognizing the crucial, functional role caregivers play in maintaining and hopefully improving the health of the care recipient.