Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy

This study examined the influence of holding a bag with one hand on a walkway with an obstacle on gait characteristics.

Ten healthy male students walked 5 m on obstructed and unobstructed walkways while holding loads corresponding to 0%, 10% and 20% of their body weights. General gait parameters (gait velocity, step length, etc.), the toe-obstacle clearance and the minimum toe clearance, the hip, knee and ankle joint angles of both limbs, and take-off and landing distances were analysed.

With heavier loads, the step length, velocity and landing distance decreased, and flexion angles of the knee and ankle of the support limb increased on both walkways. Clearances were maintained constantly by flexion of the ankle joint in unobstructed trials and by flexion of the hip joint in obstructed trials.

Even in healthy adults, gait properties remarkably change owing to holding loads that equal to 10–20% of body weight on obstructed and unobstructed walkways. Clearance between toe and an obstacle/floor are maintained by using different strategies.

With a changing mode of service delivery in the community, students in the health care field need to equip themselves with better clinical reasoning skills, judgement, and problem solving abilities.

This study aimed to determine the essential components for clinical education for students in a health care discipline and to evaluate the learning process of students placed in emerging clinical (EC) education.

Eight occupational therapy students were placed in an EC education setting (EC group) in a hospital in mainland China, where no occupational therapy service had been offered previously, while another eight students were placed in the conventional clinical (CC) education (CC group) for a period of 8 weeks. Students and the clinical educator in the EC group had to explore the opportunities for service development and promotion, while students in the CC group had enough support for equipment, space, and utilities. A questionnaire was carefully designed to evaluate and compare the degree of satisfaction between the two groups. Focus group interviews were also arranged to collect information regarding their learning process and attitude towards the education, and address any problems encountered.

We found that despite the lack of equipment and facilities, students and the clinical educator in the EC group managed to create an environment that could stimulate the learning of students through clinical reasoning, problem solving, and decision making.

The essential elements of clinical education for students appeared to be the motivation and attitudes of students and the supervision of the clinical educator. The lack of equipment and facilities did not appear to reduce the scope of learning for students.