Occupational Therapy Modulates the Pain in Cancer Patient Under Palliative Care

A gauze screen, wool thread appropriate for tapestry and a large needle were used. The entire screen was filled with a striped pattern made of embroidered half-stitches in the individuals' preferred colors. To fill the screen with half-stitches, the needle was always worked in diagonal movements, point to point. The stitches were started keeping a distance of three points from the four edges.

All the patients were followed up daily for 10 days by a single occupational therapist for around 30 minutes, during which they received guidance regarding how best to perform their ADLs, i.e. how to position themselves when sitting down and standing up, dressing and undressing, feeding themselves, performing personal hygiene and undertaking leisure activities, with the aim of protecting their joints, reducing the pain and expending less energy.

Weaving a scarf on a nail frame: this activity used a rectangular wooden frame (30 cm x 10 cm), with an empty space in the middle and nails distributed at 1 cm intervals along all sides, together with a crochet needle and wool thread. Procedure: The thread was measured out on the frame and all the fringes were cut to the same length. After this, each thread was knotted, leaving a loop that was placed over each nail. A wool thread was tied to the nail at the corner and a zigzag pattern was woven between alternate nails. On the return, the zigzag weave went via the nails that had initially been missed out. Using the crochet needle, the loop of the fringe was pulled across on top of the zigzag. The scarf went on coming out from under the frame. The zigzag sequence and the needle movement were repeated until the scarf reached the desired length.

Each player received seven dominos and kept them concealed from the adversaries' eyes. The player with the double-six (domino with the number six at both ends) started the game. If this domino had not been dealt out to any player, the one with the highest double domino started. Following on from this first player, in clockwise direction, each subsequent player placed one domino at one of the ends of the chain that was formed as the dominos were played. If a player did not have a domino that could be played, he would go to the pile and keep on picking up dominos until getting one that would fit. If no such domino existed, the player would then pass his turn on to the next player. The first player to get rid of all his dominos was the winner. If the game became "blocked", i.e. there was no longer any possibility of adding dominos to the chain, the points in each player's hand were counted and the winner was the one with the lowest number of points in his hand.