Rehabilitation and Therapy Commons^™

”To Be Or Not To Be – It’S Good”: Actor And Student Experiences In A Drama Club For People With Aphasia, Jade K. Hannan

Senior Theses

Individuals with aphasia, a disorder caused by damage to the brain’s language network, confront a variety of social and emotional struggles. While leaving their cognition largely intact, aphasia tremendously impacts a person’s ability to communicate confidently, fracturing their social network and contributing to feelings of loneliness and frustration. To address this persistent need in the chronic aphasia population, the Play on Words drama club at the University of South Carolina provides a forum for people with aphasia (PWA) to engage in dramatic exercises focused on non-verbal communication of emotions, ideas, and stories, culminating the production of an original devised play. …

Using Social Media To Examine Disabled Veterans’ Adaptive Sports Lived Experience At The National Veterans’ Wheelchair Games, Heather Harding

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Considered the world’s largest annual rehabilitative wheelchair games event for Veterans in the United States, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games (NVWG or the Games), co-hosted annually by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Paralyzed Veterans of America, is a long-standing event that offers a view into how adaptive sports and recreational activities can impact Veterans with disabilities. This hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study sought to discover if the Veteran athletes, who participated in the NVWG between 2017 and 2021, described their lived experiences through the lens of their public social media posts on Instagram, and if so, what can be gleaned …

Exploring The Effects Of The Cycling Without Age Program On Older Adults Living In Long-Term Care, Victoria Cotnam

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Cycling Without Age program, offered in long-term care homes around the world, allows residents to experience the feeling of a bike ride in the trishaw as a volunteer pedals the electrical bike. The purpose of this pragmatic observational study was to measure the effects of an existing program in a Canadian long-term care home on residents’ happiness, quality of life, pain and functional status (using Resident-Assessment Instrument Minimum Data Set 2.0). A convenience sample of 39 residents participated in two groups, a biking group (n=23) and a strolls group (n=16) over the period of 12 weeks. Findings show that …

Melodies, Memories, And Meaning: The Use Of Music Therapy For Persons With Dementia, Emily A. Carl

Selected Honors Theses

Dementia is a growing public health issue, as there are 24.3 million people currently diagnosed worldwide. Being that there is no cure, non-pharmacological interventions are important to optimize quality of life for this population. Music therapy is a nonpharmacological intervention with fine usability for dementia patients. This thesis will examine the positive effects of music therapy on the behavioral symptoms, mood management, self-esteem, language skills, cognition, and reminiscence for the individual with dementia based on existing literature and will provide practice recommendations for the clinical use of music therapy and research. A short literature review will focus on the field …

A Pilot Study To Investigate Concerns In Patients Undergoing Neck Dissection Surgery, Daniel Sundar Raj Arulananda Doss

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract:

This study investigates concerns in patients undergoing neck dissection surgery. Forty patients were recruited at Pre-surgery, Discharge and 1-month Post-surgery. The Patient Concerns Inventory - Level of Importance questionnaire (PCI-LOI), Shoulder Pain and Disability Index (SPADI), Neck Dissection Impairment Index (NDII) and the University of Washington - Quality of Life questionnaire (UWQOL) were used.

The study identified "Anxiety" at Pre-surgery and "Appearance" at Discharge and 1-month Post-surgery as the important patient concerns. Patients’ concerns were found to change over time. Support for cross-sectional convergent validity of the PCI-LOI was evidenced by significant correlations between the PCI-LOI and the UWQOL …