[in Japanese]

View full abstract

Books and articles that have influenced the educational experience of occupational science from 2000 to 2021 are presented. Students have been encouraged to think about occupations through assignments such as reading books about experiences of people with disabilities, experience students' own occupations, and creating an occupational portfolio chart for reflecting what they do and did. Phenomenology and Justice were discussed as ideas that are relatively difficult for students to understand. I have learned from the research students have done. The author's educational experience can be placed in the path of the continuing development of occupational science as a discipline that explores occupation.

View full abstract

This paper reported the origin and changes of an undergraduate course 'Occupational Science' as we have developed at Ibaraki Prefectural University of Health Sciences. We explained the significance of the content of 'Occupational Sciences' in relation with other subject courses in the occupational therapy department. We also discussed the future challenges of Occupational Science education in our university.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce our educational trial for teaching about occupations and occupational science toward the integration with training course for occupational therapists. First, the authors explain about our educational policies focusing on the cultivations of competence for taking things from an occupational perspective for undergraduate students. Then, our learning goals and course contents are shown with learning tools. Finally, the authors introduce an example of group exercise lessons to teach about occupational being, context, and occupational form/function/meaning. Also, an example is shown of an exercise lesson using Anime to provide the readers concrete images of the lesson.

View full abstract

As a teacher of OS/OT, one of my purposes was coaching students to understand the relationship of occupation, health, and the health promotion power of occupation. I introduce two projects, a health and occupation project and a life crisis and occupation project, of three I used with OT/OS students to promote this understanding: A basic concept of occupational science is that occupation embedded in our daily life and life cycle gives meaning to life events, and thus can promote health. All three projects engaged students’cognitive and emotional abilities to understand occupation. The publication (2012) on the occupational photo project discussed basic ideas of occupational science using simple explanations and everyday episodes in the lives of a variety of people. It offers rich examples of cases with photos and interviews illustrating the power of occupation in health and life crisis. The other two projects used the narrative (story telling) impact of books and movies to stimulate students' understanding of occupation. In the health and occupation project, students chose and read a book from several offered about an illness and/or disability experience. They responded to questions developed regarding health and occupation. They reported to the class and submitted written papers. In the life crisis and occupation project, students chose and viewed a movie about a person's recovery from a life crisis, looking for evidence to respond to questions relating occupation to healthy recovery. Again, they reported their understanding in class and submitted papers. The books and movies available to them affect students’motivation in these projects. The materials should encompass a wide range of stories of occupational beings and life crisis recovery. Depending on students level and educational situation, these projects offer opportunities to examine narratives for better understanding of occupation, health and the power of occupation.

View full abstract

Occupation is one of the core concepts of occupational therapy, and essential for the education of occupational therapy. The purpose of this article is to introduce the program to teach the concept of occupation and occupational being for the student who study occupational therapy. In this article, I introduce the program that is based on occupational science and aimed to develop the professional identity for the students of early stage of studying occupational therapy. It consists of eight classes with the following topics: 1) the values of occupational therapy and their changes through the history, 2) understanding occupation and occupational being, 3) perspectives of occupation, 4) meaningful occupation, 5) contexts of occupation, 6) meaningful occupation and understanding of occupational being, 7) occupational justice, 8) occupational therapy and occupation. Each class is consisted of 90 minutes length. Several teaching strategies, such as lectures, practice in the classes, groupwork, and group presentation, and assignments for the students.

View full abstract

This is an introduction of a course in occupational science for occupational therapy students in a bachelor's degree program. The purpose of this course is to understand occupations and occupational being, the tenets of occupational science. The course consisted of: what is occupation; knowing one's own occupations; explore occupations; form, function, and meaning; occupational analysis; and occupational photo. Teaching occupations and occupational being requires not only lectures of the knowledge but also a variety of experiential learning methods which includes reflecting on oneself, discussing in groups, and sharing (finding) with the class. Curriculum design in occupational therapy education should be based on the common core concept of "occupation and occupational being", and consideration should be given to the relationship between the core concept and contents of each course.

View full abstract

Dual tasks that combine exercise and cognitive tasks have efficacy as an intervention in suppressing cognitive decline among the elderly. This study aimed to examine the improvement that dual tasks (occupation and cognitive tasks) have on cognitive and mental functions. A single-arm study was conducted among 15 elderly people for six months. Intervention was determined as follows: 1) Description of important occupations, 2) Self- selection of cognitive tasks, and 3) Self-selection of occupation that incorporated cognitive tasks. Outcome indica- tors were logical memory I and II as a sub-item of the WMS-R, Symbol Digit Modalities Test and Position Stroop test as a sub-item of the CAT, CAS questionnaire, CES-D, and SF-36. All participants were able to complete the intervention with no adverse effects. Indicators that showed significant improvement before and after the inter- vention were logical memory II (p < 0.01, effect size = 0.58), Position Stroop test (p = 0.03, effect size = 0.53), CES-D (p < 0.01, effect size = 1.00), CAS (p = 0.04, effect size = 0.49), and social life function (p = 0.04, effect size = 0.53). Integrating cognitive tasks into occupations may help improve delayed recall and attention, alleviate depression, and increase motivation.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract