Even hula hooping becomes occupational therapy :)

Tonight I was trying to help a friend/new hooper how to do the "snake" like moves where you hula hoop on your chest. She was struggling and as I watched to analyze the task and break down where the issue was, I realized that it was due to her stiffness in that she struggled with scapular retraction, bringing her scapulas together in the back - she tended to subtly compensate by leaning slightly backwards so it took a while to figure out. I put my hands solidly on her hips to isolate and began to work with her on isolating her upper body and circling with emphasis on scapular retraction- but she needed more assistance than I could provide with two hands, so I enlisted her husband. He took over solidly holding her hips for me and I took over guiding the circular movements and using my hand to help encourage her scapular retraction when the movement called for it.  After a few minutes of his hip holding and my scapular facilitation, we faded to me holding her hips and her doing the circular motions with occasional verbal cues. Then I held her hips less tightly and ultimately not at all, then gave her feedback solely verbally and had her watch herself sideways in the mirror, etc. I also showed her husband how to assist her/know what to look for, since she is super motivated to learn hooping and he is super motivated to help her! ;)  This, to me, is a perfect example of how OT works - breaking down a task into small pieces to find out where an issue is arising, t...
Source: Occupational Therapy Students (B)e(LO)n(G) - Category: Occupational Therapists Source Type: blogs