The meaning of occupation for patients in palliative care when in hospital.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe how patients in palliative care relate to occupation during hospitalization and to define the meaning it has for them.

Method: Eight inpatients in palliative care with various cancer diagnoses were interviewed one time. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Stories of rediscovering agency: home-based occupational therapy for people with severe psychiatric disability.

As part of a larger study, we offered Everyday Life Rehabilitation (ELR) as a model for integrated occupational therapy in sheltered or supported housing facilities, to enable meaningful daily occupations for people with psychiatric disabilities. Our aim with this study was to understand how participants made sense of their occupational transformations in the context of their everyday life and life history. We carried out qualitative interviews and field observations with 16 participants with psychosis-related disorders.

Home bittersweet home: the significance of home for occupational transformations.

Background: The study illuminated how persons with psychiatric disabilities experienced the processes of change in a residential context.

Material: Qualitative interviews with residents living in supported housing were conducted and analyzed using constant comparative analysis.

Discussion: Residential conditions appear to provide a complex structure that facilitates rehabilitative interactions, in which 'progressive tensions' arise between opposing values, such as authentic versus artificial, and independence versus dependence, both of which are important in the process of change.

Gender differences in disability and health-related quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease treated with stereotactic surgery.

Objectives: To investigate eventual differences between women and men with Parkinson's disease (PD) before and after surgery, with respect to clinical status, disability and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Material And Methods: Twenty-four men and 14 women with PD received a total of 46 surgical procedures (pallidotomy, thalamotomy and deep brain stimulation of the thalamus, pallidum or subthalamic nucleus). The impact of PD on disability and other aspects of HRQoL was analysed separately in men and women before and at a mean of 11 months after surgery, using the following assessment tools: The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), the ADL Taxonomy, the Nottingham Health Profile, the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire and a Visual Analogue Scale.

Does the ADL part of the unified Parkinson's disease rating scale measure ADL? An evaluation in patients after pallidotomy and thalamic deep brain stimulation.

We evaluated the impact of pallidotomy and thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS) on disability of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and investigated whether the activities of daily living (ADL) section of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) measures disability in everyday life. Nineteen patients who had pallidotomy and 14 patients who had thalamic DBS were followed for a mean of 11 months. Evaluation tools included the UPDRS as well as a generic ADL scale, called ADL taxonomy.