Prepare for the clinic with confidence

Here's the perfect go-to text for developing the critical-thinking and clinical-decision making skills you need to transition from the classroom to the clinic--specifically designed for PTAs.

From common to complex, thirteen real-life case studies represent a variety of practice settings and age groups. Identify, research, and assess the pathologies and possible treatments.

Photographs of real therapists working with their patients bring concepts to life. Reviewed by 16 PT and PTA experts, this comprehensive resource ensures you are prepared to confidently make sound clinical decisions.

Perfect as a stand-alone text or integrated throughout the curriculum

In Group Filial Therapy (GFT), therapists train parents to conduct play sessions with their own children to help meet children's therapeutic needs, and to transfer appropriate skills to family life. Based on parents' application of Child-Centred Play Therapy, taught and supervised by filial therapists, this evidence-based method is highly effective for working with families from diverse backgrounds and locations. This book provides an accessible guide to the theory and practice of GFT, and for the first time offers step-by-step guidelines for implementing the GFT program developed by Dr Guerney, the co-creator of Filial Therapy. Important practical considerations are addressed by Dr Guerney and Dr Ryan, such as how to determine the composition of groups and the duration of programs, and how to conduct Filial Therapy intakes. The facilitative attitudes and skills needed to be an effective Filial Therapy group leader are also described, and comprehensive instructions for implementing Dr Guerney's 20-week model of GFT are provided. The book closes with examples of how the program may be adapted to meet the needs of special groups. Replete with examples and dialogues bringing to life the group process, this definitive guide will enable therapists already familiar with the method, as well as those wishing to learn it, to maximise the fulfilment of therapeutic goals for participating families. Practitioners in mental health, social services and counselling, as well as parenting experts, play and filial therapists and therapists in training will find that this book expands and enriches the services they can offer their clients.

Placing motivation at the heart of all encounters and therapeutic activities, this book presents a groundbreaking, evidence-based model for working with children, including those with physical disabilities, learning disabilities and emotional and behavioural difficulties. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the authors describe this innovative paradigm - the model of Synthesis of Child, Occupational Performance and Environment - in Time (SCOPE-IT) - and explain how it can be used to sustain the child's motivation and active involvement in the therapeutic process. They suggest ways of using language and of structuring and working with the environment to maximise engagement and autonomy and achieve the best possible treatment outcomes. The challenges professionals may face when working with children are also clearly addressed, and engaging case studies and photographs place the key theoretical concepts in a richly human and personal context. Combining accessible theory with a wealth of tools and strategies for practice, this book is essential reading for all those working therapeutically with children, including occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists and psychotherapists.

Obese individuals are twice as likely to experience heart failure as non-obese people. More than eighty-five per cent of type 2 diabetes sufferers are overweight. And in the United States, obese and overweight individuals make up more than two-thirds of the adult population. Public health organizations and governments have traditionally tried to combat obesity through shame-inducing policies, which assure people that they can easily lose weight by eating right and exercising. This generic approach has failed, as it does little to address the personal, genetic, and cultural challenges faced by obese individuals.

XXL directly confronts the global public health sector by proposing an innovative, alternative policy - the 'healthy living voucher' - for decreasing high calorie consumption and its related health problems. Neil Seeman and Patrick Luciani argue that many public health campaigns have made the problem of obesity worse by minimizing how difficult it is for individuals to lose weight. XXL challenges governments to abandon top-down planning solutions in favour of bottom-up innovations to confront the obesity crisis.