CNN health often has interesting articles.
They had an interesting article that argues stress can be as
bad as second-hand smoke.
Recreational therapists (in mental/ behavioral health)
settings as well as physical rehab settings (based on my personal experiences)
provide stress management interventions.
I provide a mix of interventions for children and
adolescents at a residential treatment program for three different needs. My
primary triaging and experience is providing services for children with
abuse-reactive needs. These children have all had suffered some type of abuse
or traumatic life experience. Some of the kids have Post-traumatic stress
disorder.
I provide several types of interventions under the
recommendation and supervision of physician to help these children (patients).
Some of these include: psych-education about stress and trauma, relaxation
skills training, emotional regulation skills (to cope with various emotions),
and components of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT), which I’ve
had additional training.
Of course, many types of relaxation skills for children are
play-based. It includes outdoor activities, sports, games, fitness, and
activities as a healthy distraction.
In my opinion, Recreation Therapists provide interventions
that are best suited for helping people learn ways to cope with stress. I do
think we, as RTs, need to find more ways to make outcomes measurable.
There are several ways. In examples, the Heart-Rate Variability
measurement is one tool to determine if a person is in Heart-Rate Coherence. I’ve
had training on using HeartMath tooks at several of the American Therapeutic
Recreation Association (ATRA) conferences.
There are other ways to measure too, in example: measuring
cortisol levels, which are associated with stress.
I’d like to argue that the education component of RT is very
important. Patients/ clients/ (kids in my case who I provide services for) need
to having an understanding of the benefits (what is in it for them), the
outcomes: like less feelings of stress, less stress-related health problems, improved health, less likely to have physical illness
as a result of stress. That sentence felt redundant. The client also needs to
have an awareness of the skills that they can take-home with them and use in
daily living. This could be a mix of relaxation skills: taking walks, physical
exercises, taking a mini-vacation/ relaxation break, self-care, basic renewal.
In other words, work ourselves out of a job.
I’d like to point out that RTs should be using the American
Therapeutic Recreation Association’s standards of practice. Services (in clinical
settings) need to have physician order for assessment and treatment. A
comprehensive assessment should be used to evaluate client’s strengths and
areas of needed improvement in the functional domains. Treatment plan goals
need to be written (with client) to be part of the overall treatment team plan.
RTs will provide interventions they are competent to provide (in example:
relaxation skills training, psycho-education or leisure-education that teaches
healthy life skills, and of course, activity-based interventions to allow the
client to practice the skill. The RT will be providing these interventions
along with other members of the treatment team. In a psychiatric setting, this
will probably include: professional counselors, social workers, psychologists,
nurses, mental health technicians or direct care providers, dieticians, and
other allied professionals.
Documentation along the process is important as well.
Individual and group RT-based interventions are to be documented by the RT as
part of the medical record to evaluate the client’s outcomes and progress (or
lack of progress).
Well, I could go on for hours about this.
I will leave you with the CNN link about the harm of stress
here:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/health/stress-work-secondhand-smoke/index.html
