Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master’s Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / Manual therapists are susceptible to occupational low back pain. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors for occupational low back pain in manual therapists and to determine and compare the prevalence and risk factors for occupational low back pain among various types of manual therapists in South Africa. This study was conducted as a cross-sectional survey and a self-administered questionnaire, developed from the literature and validated prior to the study, was mailed to 1500 randomly selected manual therapists, including: physiotherapists, occupational therapists, biokineticists, chiropractors, reflexologists, aromatherapists and massage therapists. A total of 233 completed questionnaires were returned, giving a response rate of 15.53%. Results revealed that the point prevalence of low back pain in manual therapists was very high at 41%, the one-year prevalence was 59% and the career prevalence was 74%. The point prevalence of low back pain was highest in aromatherapists and biokineticists, while both the one-year and career prevalence of low back pain was highest in occupational therapists and massage therapists. The risk factors for low back pain in manual therapists were: BMI; previous abdominal surgery; previous trauma to the low back, hips, knees or ankles; a physically stressful job; not having an assistant and work in a hospital or other setting. In keeping with the literature, various workrelated factors were implicated in the development and / or exacerbation of low back pain in certain manual therapists more than others and low back pain history in the different manual therapists was also in accordance with the literature. To conclude, low back pain is prevalent among South African manual therapists and the development and implementation of preventative programs to reduce rates of occupational low back pain in manual therapists is mandatory.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-238). Also available via the Internet.

Physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists play a key role in the treatment of children with epilepsy. We performed a survey of therapists’ knowledge of and attitudes towards epilepsy in two regions of Germany, the city of Leipzig and the rural district of Zwickau. Therapists of 29/68 (43%) outpatient practices and 4/9 (44%) hospitals took part. In total, 195 therapists participated: 63 (32%) physiotherapists, 74 (38%) occupational therapists, and 58 (30%) speech therapist. In 65%, epilepsy was subject of vocational training. Of all therapists, 8% claimed they had not treated epilepsy patients so far. During professional life, 43% had witnessed a seizure. Of all therapists, 44% correctly assumed a seizure could result in death. During a seizure, 42% would perform the obsolete measure of placing something solid in the patient’s mouth, and 41% would administer a prescribed rescue medication. More information on epilepsy was requested by 92%. Conclusion: Most therapists treat patients with epilepsy, and almost half have already witnessed a seizure. Often, however, epilepsy is not subject of vocational training. The risk of a fatal outcome of a seizure is underestimated, and many therapists would perform obsolete measures. Knowledge of seizure management should be transmitted to therapists especially during vocational training.:Inhaltsverzeichnis Abkürzungsverzeichnis ............................................................................................... 3 1. Einführung in die Thematik..................................................................................... 4 1.1. Hintergrund ................................................................................................... 4 1.1.1. Epilepsie ................................................................................................. 4 1.1.2. Therapie der Epilepsie ............................................................................ 5 1.1.3. Bedeutung von Physiotherapie, Ergotherapie und Logopädie im Rahmen der Epilepsietherapie................................................................ 6 1.2. Therapeuten und Epilepsie als Schwerpunkt bereits vorhandener Studien . 8 1.3. Zielsetzungen der Studie ............................................................................ 10 1.4. Studiendesign ............................................................................................. 11 2. Originalartikel.......................................................................................................12 3. Zusammenfassung der Arbeit..............................................................................20 4. Literatur................................................................................................................25 5. Anlagen................................................................................................................30 I. Darstellung des eigenen Beitrages, Anteile der Co-Autoren................................ 40 II. Eigenständigkeitserklärung..................................................................................41

The purpose of this study was to determine the amount, type, and content of training acquired by SLPs presently working in dysphagia management, as well as their level of involvement. A questionnaire was sent to 97 Oregon SLPs. Of these, 77 (80%) responded, and 52 met criteria. The resulting data indicated that SLPs involved with dysphagia work in a variety of settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and private practice. Seventy-two percent of the subjects have been involved with dysphagia management for less than 10 years; 79% treated between 1 and 10 patients for dysphagia the month prior to filling out the questionnaire; and 81% have provided other staff in their settings with in-service on dysphagia.

Imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a psychological intervention effective in treating intrusive images in PTSD. Studies have suggested factors in ImRs which may influence outcome; however, research is still in its infancy, with mechanisms of action still unknown and factors which make it successful unclear (Arntz, 2012). This study aimed to investigate therapists' experience of the process of delivering ImRs in PTSD and what they believe make it an effective intervention. The study used a Grounded Theory (GT) approach to investigate eight therapists' experience of using ImRs in PTSD, and their view of what makes it successful. A GT analysis produced a model illustrating the process of using ImRs, consisting of four theoretical themes: using ImRs in PTSD, facing obstacles in working with the imagination, identifying the mechanisms of action and moving from the unknown to the known. The main suggested mechanisms of action involved re-establishing power and enabling an emotional shift to occur. The model highlighted inter-relationships existing, with distinct themes feeding into each other. The GT model suggested more structure and research is required for an increased understanding in ImRs, allowing therapists to feel more confident and comfortable using the perceived anxiety-provoking technique. Future research could focus on interesting findings from this study allowing an already powerful therapeutic tool to develop and become a more widely-used and prioritised treatment technique in PTSD.

Only two years after graduating themselves, speech and language therapists are asked to act as placement educators and supervise student speech and language therapists. The role of the placement educator is to supervise, teach, support and assess the student in the clinical environment and as such is a complex and demanding role. Some previous research has suggested that the training and support provided to developing placement educators does not adequately prepare them for the role. However, the development of speech and language therapists as placement educators is a relatively under-researched area in the UK. This interpretive study explores how ten speech and language therapists feel they develop the necessary skills to be successful as placement educators, through the stories they tell about their experiences. This exploration of clinical education and professional development is set within a social constructivist perspective on learning. The participants talked at length of their own early experiences as students and described these as the starting point for their own enactment of the placement educator role. They also emphasised the importance of continuing to learn and develop their skills as they gained experience in the placement educator role itself. The themes of talk, collaboration, reflective practice and experiential learning were central to the stories told by the participants and underpin how these speech and language therapists learnt to be placement educators. It is suggested that in describing how she felt she learnt to be a placement educator each participant created a unique and dynamic map of that learning. This study contributes to the on-going discussion about the role of critical reflection in understanding and challenging established practice and reinforces the place of reflective practice as integral to both the clinical and placement educator aspects of the SLT’s role. The findings highlight the importance of peer support and shared opportunities for critical reflection with colleagues in ensuring that placement educators do not feel isolated or disillusioned.

The focus of this research is on the collaboration relationships of teachers and therapists working in school-based provision for pupils with language and communication disorders. The research is concerned with how the collaboration relationship operates as a power relation for these individuals. There is an attempt to work out something of the effects of changing notions of professionalism in its historical and current versions. The research reveals individuals' identifications with the powerful discourses in this contingent context, manifested in their metaphors and discursive moves. It analyses the complex interaction of discourses and cultural discourses/practices, attempting to grasp the effects of the powerful discourses as individuals construct and re-construct multiple professional and cultural identities and subject positions. In its examination of the political and cultural functioning of the forces of power-knowledge-selves-desire, the research analyses the operation of five dimensions of power at work in these relationships. The analysis subsequently suggests some implications for teacher/therapist co-practice. The research attends to the discourses of inter-professional collaboration in government policy documentation at the macro level, within local authority and school-institution policy statements at the meso level and in the way that participants write and speak of their collaborations at a micro leveL. Macro level discourses were examined in the relevant speech and language therapy and education agencies' policy documentation including Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools (HMI) Report (1996) and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) (1996) statement of professional standards. Meso level discourses were sought in the relevant local education authority and school policy documentation. Micro level discourses were explored in instances of individuals' talk about their collaborative practice. Participants' accounts were gathered in semi-structured interviews, audiotaped collaborators' meeting talk and written texts. Individual experiences within specific collaboration relationships have not perhaps been grasped or understood in research into teacher/therapist co-working which draws upon positivist methodology and uses positivist methods. There is much previous research which theorizes collaboration at interagency or interprofessionallevels or that takes a systems theory approach that seeks to generalize norms of 'effectiveness' at either or both of these levels. This research was concerned to explore individuals' experiences of co-practice in an analysis which questioned co-practice norms and attempted to unsettle certainties. Participants' accounts in this analysis suggested a more continuous, fluid process of construction and re-construction of individuals' subject positions characterised by unstable identifications. Analysis of individuals' accounts revealed their subjection to the powerful discourses and their active exploitations of those discourses as resources, their subject positions manifested in their discursive choices, ambivalences, oscilations, evasions and miscalculations. Certain of the ways were uncovered in which multiple, unstable practice and co-practice related discourses interplay and compete, working to produce individuals subject to their power; and providing the discursive resources which individuals deploy as they constitute and reconstitute discourse/practice identity positions in their struggles for domination within their relationships. This analysis suggests certain of the effects of the powerful discourses as the participants constitute and re-constitute acceptable power sharing practices, positions within the dimensions of power which, at times collide with positions acceptable to the other. A number of possibilities for the co-practice of teachers and therapists in school-site provision for pupils with language and communication disorders are identified and discussed. These suggest how school institutions' and agencies' policy makers might attend to the diversity and plurality of teachers' and therapists' discursive resources and co-practices. These also suggest that spaces for the exploration of teacher/therapist discourse/practice differences as these relate to the notion of shared discursive resources and co-practice should be opened-up. These further suggest the need to question current policies and practices using a wider variety of conceptual and analytical tools and the need for shared learning spaces which might promote more personally acceptable practices underpinned by knowledge of each other's aspirations.

M.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The aim of this research was to longitudinally and quantitatively investigate sense of coherence (SOC) and coping strategies as predictors of compassion satisfaction (CS) and compassion fatigue (CF) as measured by secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout (BT) during the first six months of training in a professional psychology training programme. Trainee therapists’, “dramatically shift” their “focus of functioning over time” to adorn the personality and self of the therapist (Rønnestad & Skovholt, 2003, p. 28). This adaptive process may initially unravel over six months as trainees balance client and workload stressors (Hill, Sullivan, Knox & Schlosser, 2007; Tryssenaar & Perkins, 2001). However, research on the developmental processes behind the negative (CF) and positive (CS) avenues of therapeutic stressors is lacking in the trainee therapists’ population, especially quantitatively (Schwing, LaFollette, Steinfeldt & Wong, 2010; Thériault, Gazzola & Richardson, 2009). This research aimed to explore these issues in relation to professional development through SOC and coping as predictors of CS and CF over a six month training period. Variables were investigated quantitatively through the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL) (Stamm, 2010) the Brief COPE (BCOPE) (Carver, 1997) and the 29-item self-report Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ) (Antonovsky, 1987). As such, the primary focus of this research was on how SOC and coping strategies were utilised by trainee therapists as process variables in predicting the positive (CS) and negative (CF) avenues of therapeutic work over a six month period of psychotherapy training. Findings suggested that, at the beginning of training, sense of coherence was directly associated with the core outcome variables (CS and CF (as measured by STS and BT). When trainee therapists started seeing clients two months later, the effect of SOC was mediated by coping. At the end of training, only coping was directly associated with outcome variables as the effect of SOC on CS and CF disappeared. These implications are further discussed in the research.

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities; University of the Witwatersrand. June 2016 / This study explored the experiences of and interactions between speech-language therapists and interpreters in cross-linguistic mediated consultations with caregivers of children with severe disabilities within a health care setting. The objectives of the study included: to analyse the interactional characteristics and features of speech-language therapists and interpreters; and to identify speech therapists’ and interpreters’ perceptions of their competence and experiences in multicultural settings. Patients who do not speak the same language as the health care professionals receive limited health services when compared with people who speak the same language as the professionals who serve them, which may result in poor health outcomes. The research was conducted from an interpretive approach, which includes a respect for intra- personal values, beliefs and interests in the topic. The design included multiple data collection methods and analysis. The data was collected from consultation experience of thirteen caregivers of children with communication disabilities, five SLTs and one interpreter in two urban hospitals in Gauteng. The participants were recruited using purposive sampling procedures from two urban tertiary hospitals in Gauteng. And group Research instruments used were video recordings, individual interviews. The objectives were investigated through a qualitative study using ethnographic observations; video recordings of the interactions between speech therapists and an interpreter during interviews with caregivers of children with disabilities; audio recordings; and individual interviews with speech-language therapists and interpreters post-consultation. The data collected were analysed using thematic content analysis and conversational analysis. The findings highlighted the diversity challenges faced by SLTs working in multilingual and multicultural hospital settings. Language and translation issues had a marked impact on information received by caregivers. Despite the challenges that clinicians experienced in multilingual settings, they seemed to find that their working experience was an important leveller when they had an interpreter present during their consultations. The findings inform academic curricula and the clinical practice of speech-language and audiology students and professionals and will help improve application to transform the way in which they apply theoretical knowledge when treating speech and hearing disorders in a multilingual and multicultural context; thus enhancing the efficacy of management of communication disorders within this context. / MT 2018