Meri Pekkanen: Occupational therapy, nutrition and other hot health stuff

Starting a blog

February 28, 2010 at 14:14 3 comments

I am a 31 year old Occupational Therapist living in Helsinki, Finland. I’ve decided to start keeping a blog to facilitate discussion around and about occupational therapy, nutrition and overall health and well-being. I’m interested in on-going research in the field of OT as well as nutrition.

I graduated as an OT 2007 so I’m still pretty green. Nevertheless, highly motivated and eager to come up with new kinds of solutions in fighting different problems of everyday activities caused by neurological, mental, and other diseases. I work on the acute hospital wards in Helsinki and also as the head of our OT unit. My work consists mainly of assessments on the ward as well as at clients’ homes.

My interest with nutrition has roots in my active sports history (still on-going).  I’ve been gathering a lot of information regarding supporting optimal (physical) performance by eating well. Recently I’ve read more and more alarmingly interesting news about nutrition’s significance when it come to treating, or better yet preventing, illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, vascular diseases, heart and coronary diseases and other neurological and inflammation illnesses.

I’m confident that there are multiple undiscovered ways of promoting health and well-being, preventing illnesses and treating the symptoms by the means of a holistic understanding of a human body and mind. I believe the dichotomy between mental and somatic illnesses is old-fashioned and should soon be undone. I think the keys in solving a human puzzle lie in nutrition, sleep, being part of a community and looking at people as we do in occupational therapy: as the experts of their own lives.

I hope that I’ll find people interested in sharing their thoughts and views regarding these issues so that we can together create something spectacular. At least from an individual’s point of view. Mine, if no one else’s 😀 So welcome, please, have a seat!

Meri

If you’re unfamiliar with occupational therapy, have a look at the Wikipedia article regarding OT.

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