O&M Observations

Tuesday May 16th – Today we each went out with one of the O&M instructors to observe them while they worked with a client. I spent the morning with Rose who is working with a client who has had a recent decrease in vision and since birth has been profoundly deaf in the right ear making localizing traffic sounds very difficult. Today they were working on road crossings and using a scanning techniques to best utilize the good ear. The idea is that the client would stand at the crossing and turn only the head while listening so proper alignment for the crossing would be maintained. The client’s skills were actually quite good; they mostly just needed some confidence and practice.

Mo, you’re going to love this one, in the afternoon I went with Linden for a scooter assessment. Yes, you read this correctly, a SCOOTER (as in a Rascal), assessment! The client has a loss of vision on one side of the eye. Due to some physical limitation the person wanted to be able to use a scooter. The client had received scanning training while walking and had recently been trained on how to use the scooter. Linden was to assess if the client was able to safely operate the scooter and use the previously taught scanning techniques while riding. Being an O&M here is a varied and interesting job!