Life Skills in Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy is a health profession that uses the purposeful activities to achieve multiple and complex rehabilitation aims. The main goals of the occupational therapy are to support the reintegration of individuals in daily living skills as well as to increase their independence and autonomy. Interventions of occupational therapists have primarily focused on self-care, productivity, and leisure time activities. Since the life skills includes a wide range of abilities that enable a person to perform personal care and more complicated tasks such as traveling, shopping, community participation etc., occupational therapists provide life skills training programs to meet the needs of the clients. This chapter aims to contribute to the current understanding and practices of life skills from an occupational therapy perspective. The chapter starts with a brief discussion of the importance of life skills in occupational therapy. After this introduction, the first part takes a look at the definition of life skills and identifies core components of life skills. The second part describes assessment and interventions of life skills. The third one gives an overview about school life skills programs for children and adolescents. Finally, the last part explains some life skills programs in people with disadvantages

Which of us were more affected by the pandemic? The psychiatric impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare professionals in the province where the first quarantine units were established in Turkey

Introduction Psychiatric problems, such as stress and anxiety disorders, are encountered amongst healthcare professionals fighting epidemics. Considering that COVID-19 suddenly became a pandemic and healthcare professionals have not had access to sufficient information, it is a fact that healthcare professionals have been affected on a large scale. Heavy workloads, insufficient equipment and anxiety over families increase this impact. We aimed to investigate the extent to which healthcare professionals have been psychologically affected by COVID-19 and related factors. Methodology Data obtained through questionnaires completed by 348 healthcare professionals working during the COVID-19 pandemic and 350 participants who are in the control group were investigated. The Impact of Event Scale-revised (IES-R) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the Severity Index (ISI) for insomnia were used. Differences regarding gender, occupation, age group, marital status and sub-groups were statistically analysed. Results Of the 348 healthcare professionals, 176 (50.6%) were women and 172 (49.4%) men, while 190 (54.6%) were doctors and 158 (45.4%) nurses. The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher in the healthcare professionals group than in the control group (P < .001). The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher amongst nurses (P = .001), women (P = .002) and those who were married (P = .007). Both PTSD and insomnia were found to be statistically significantly higher amongst those working in the "area of final diagnosis" (P = .016 and P = .002, respectively). Conclusions The determination of the groups most affected amongst professionals working in epidemics is important for the planning of in-service training and psychological support studies. If the fight against pandemics includes health teams with strong psychological grounding, it leads to qualified medical care for patients

Natural diterpenoid alysine A isolated from Teucrium alyssifolium exerts antidiabetic effect via enhanced glucose uptake and suppressed glucose absorption

Teucrium species have been used in folk medicine as antidiabetic, antiinflammatory, antiulcer, and antibacterial agents. We have explored in vitro antidiabetic impacts of 2 natural diterpenoids, alysine A and alysine B, isolated from Teucrium alyssifolium. The lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) cytotoxicity assay, glucose uptake test, glucose utilization (glycogen content) test, glucose transport test, glucose absorption (α-glucosidase activity) test, insulin secretion test, RNA isolation and cDNA synthesis assay, qPCR quantification assays, and statistical analyses were carried out in the present study. Alysine A exerted the following effects at non-cytotoxic doses: • Enhanced the glucose uptake, as much as the insulin in the C2C12, HepG2, and 3T3-L1 cells • Increased the glycogen content in the C2C12 and HepG2 liver cells, significantly higher than the insulin and metformin • Suppressed the alpha-glucosidase and the GLUT2 expression levels in the Caco-2 cells • Suppressed the SGLT1 and GLUT1-5 expression levels in the Caco-2 cells • Induced the insulin receptor substrate (IRS)1 and GLUT2 expression levels of the BTC6 pancreatic cells • Induced the insulin receptor (INSR), IRS2, phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), GLUT4, and protein kinase (PK) expression levels of the 3T3-L1 and C2C12 cells • Increased glucose transport through the Caco-2 cell layer • Did not influence insulin secretion in the pancreatic BTC6 cells Consequently, these data strongly emphasized the antidiabetic action of alysine A on the particularly critical model mechanisms that assume a part in glucose homeostasis, such as glucose uptake, utilization, and storage. Moreover, the expression level of the essential genes in glucose metabolism and insulin signaling was altered in a way that the results would be antihyperglycemic. A blend of in vitro and in situ tests affirmed the antihyperglycemic action of alysine A and its mechanism. Alysine A has exercised significant and positive results on the glucose homeostasis; thus, it is a natural and pleiotropic antidiabetic agent. Advanced in vivo studies are required to clarify the impact of this compound on glucose homeostasis completelyThis work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey under TÜBİTAK, under Project No.: 114Z640, and Pamukkale University under Project No.: PAUBAP-2014FBE029

Sodyum büteratın Caco2 kolon kanseri hücreleri üzerinde terapatik etkisinin ATR-FTIR spektroskopisi kullanılarak incelenmesi.

Sodium butyrate (NaBt), as one of the HDACi, has been demonstrated that it induces apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, the inhibition of angiogenesis, metastasis and gene expression changes. To date, there are several studies perfomed to investigate its therapeutic effect; however, theexact mechanism at molecular level is not clear yet. Therefore, the current thesis was aimed to clarify the action/theurapeutic potential mechanisms of sodium butyrate in Caco2 colon cancer cell line at molecular level using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, quantitative spectral and chemometric analyses. 3mM, 6mM and 9mM doses of sodium butyrate were applied to Caco2 cell line line for 12h, 24h and 48 h. According to the results, NaBt treatment caused an increase in the unsaturated lipids, impying elevated lipid peroxiation. Moreover increased saturated lipids, membrane fluidity/dynamics and esters and triacylglycerols were obtained in NaBt-treated groups with respect to the control ones. However, NaBt induced a degradation of proteins and nucleic acids. HCA and PCA results indicated that in all studied doses, there was a clear distinction between studied groups in a time dependent manner. The results of the current study implied that sodium butyrate may have therapeutic potential by structural and functional remodelling of cancer cells.M.S. - Master of Scienc