I watched a TED Talk called "Simple hacks for life with Parkinson's" given by Mileha Soneji. I chose to watch this talk because of our recent lectures in class on Parkinson's disease. Mileha Soneji has an uncle who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Before his diagnosis, she described him as being playful and always the center of attention. After his diagnosis, he began to hide from people because he didn't want to be noticed. She noticed how much her uncle struggled just to get around using a walker, and she decided she wanted to do something about it. She decided to target small, every day tasks instead of tackling one huge problem; this is something an OT would do. We look at every day tasks that our clients have problems with, and we help them overcome them. Soneji wanted to help her uncle with his tremors first because he didn't want to drink coffee or tea in public anymore because he felt embarrassed. She designed a no-spill cup that deflects the liquid back inside the cup when tremors occur. It looks like a cup any person could use, and she designed it that way so that the person could feel like they blend in. She interviewed her uncle to see what his challenges were. When she realized she was only getting superficial answers, she decided to gain perspective and observe her uncle as he performed his daily routine. One thing she wondered was how her uncle got up and down the staircase, so he showed her. She showed a video during her talk of her uncle walking up and down the stairs with ease. She explained because it was a continuous motion, so his symptoms hardly affected him. Soneji wanted to translate the feeling of walking on stairs to walking on flat land, so she designed a staircase illusion. She showed a video of her uncle walking on the staircase illusion on flat ground, and it was amazing to see how easily he could walk; however, when he got to the end of the staircase illusion he had freezing of gait. So she had the staircase illusion flowing through all the rooms of her uncle's house so he could get around easily. It was really interesting to see the ideas and simple solutions she came up with to help her uncle. We try to make finding solutions so complicated because of the many technological advances we have today. This talk really opened my eyes to see that most problems can be solved with a simple solution, and this idea is something I will carry with me in my career as an OT.
Soneji, Mileha. (2015, February). Simple hacks for life with Parkinson's [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/mileha_soneji_simple_hacks_for_life_with_parkinson_s
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