Date of Award

6-2024

Document Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Doctor of Occupational Therapy

Department

Occupational Therapy

First Advisor

Lacee Andrews OTD, OTR/L, CNS, AIB-VRC

Second Advisor

Adam Story OTD, OTR/L, PT, DPT, MTC

Abstract

Background: Occupational therapists have access to many advanced technological devices that can aid in enhancing patients’ functional occupations. Such devices can be very costly and beneficial to the profession at large however they are not being used to their fullest potential. Barriers surrounding the usage of advanced technology can include a lack of therapist training, a lack of confidence in skills required to operate the devices and being uninformed on the benefit that technology can have on the client’s functionality. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and reduce the barriers surrounding the usage of the neurosensorimotor integrator amongst the neurorehabilitation team (occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, and rehabilitation specialists) at Rehab Without Walls (RWW). Method: A non-probability convenience sample was recruited of the neurorehabilitation team at RWW. A pre-survey consisting of a needs assessment and the Systems Usability Scale (SUS) to gain understanding of the therapists perceived usability of the NSI was given. From the results of the pre-survey various deliverables were created including a device set-up guide, a program decision tree and a simplified user’s manual. Each of the therapy disciplines received a one-hour training outlining the NSI programs pertinent to the skills they target in therapy interventions. A post-survey was given to determine the therapist’s perceived usability of the NSI following the discipline specific training. Results: The average perceived usability of therapists increased by 8.75 points following the discipline-specific training on the NSI programs. However, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated that the change in therapist-perceived usability was not statistically significant (Table 5; Z = −1.826, p = 0.068). Conclusion: Positive trends show an increase in therapists perceived usability of the NSI however, due to a small sample size further research is necessary to increase reliability and validity of the study to deem it generalizable.

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