Critical Evaluation / Personal Reflection

This blog discusses the effects of Pressure Garment Therapy (PGT) and Silicone Gel Sheeting (SGS) in the treatment of burns and scars, highlighting the impact these interventions have on an individual’s occupational performance, cosmetic outcomes and self-efficacy. I chose to develop a blog on Burn and Scar Management in Occupational Therapy to highlight my strong passion to work with clients experiencing excessive scarring, to facilitate functional engagement in meaningful and purposeful occupations, with a vision for challenging social stigmatisation to facilitate social interaction and acceptance within clients’ communities.

Prior to writing this blog I had some knowledge of how PGT and SGS is successful in improving cosmetic and functional outcomes on a stand-alone basis from Fieldwork 4 experience. There were aspects when developing this blog that I found difficult. This included being given complete creative license with developing the blog. This was very difficult for me as I am an individual who values having structure or guidelines to follow as I am not the most creative with ideas. We were also not provided with any real prior knowledge or teaching of what makes a good blog in relation to information depth, structure, layout and use of language. I used Mary Silcocks occupational therapy blog as an exemplar as it showcases highly informative occupational therapy domain based knowledge.

In conclusion, the knowledge learnt from this blog promotes evidence based practice I can follow to ensure my practice is safe, ethical and promotes successful functional and social participation for individuals. The knowledge gained will impact and guide my practice as I now understand from developing my procedural reasoning that combining PGT and SGS interventions are consistently effective treatments in scar management. It improves both functional and psychological impairments and an individual’s engagement in everyday life and social situations. (Steinstraesser et al, 2011).

References:

Steinstraesser, L., Flak, E., Witte, B., Ring, A., Tilkorn, D., Hauser, J., ... & Al-Benna, S. (2011). Pressure garment therapy alone and in combination with silicone for the prevention of hypertrophic scarring: Randomized controlled trial with intraindividual comparison. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 128(4), 306e-313e. doi: 10.1097/prs.0b013e3182268c69  

Comments

  1. Courteney30 July 2017 at 19:21

    I loved reading your blog! It is very clear that you have a strong passion for this area of occupational therapy. Your blog has opened my eyes to how OT's can help those with burns and scars. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lauren Bromley30 July 2017 at 22:07

      Thank you so much for your comment it is nice hearing my audiences feedback. Glad you enjoyed reading.

      Delete
  2. Unknown6 August 2017 at 00:52

    I agree! I can see a clear passion come through, was awesome to read something so genuine! I also have no knowledge of this so found it to be such an interesting read!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lauren Bromley6 August 2017 at 02:13

      Thank you for your comment, glad you enjoyed the read and learnt some valuable information. This is definitely an area I am strongly passionate about; and enthusiastic about educating my pears, colleges, other occupational therapy professionals and the public community to decrease the stigmatization around excessive scaring.

      Delete

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