A Reflection on the Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lecture By Ruth Zemke
Image Source Ruth Zemke, PhD, OTR, FAOTA, Professor Emeritus, was a professor at the USC Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy (Rado, 2004). Ruth was the co-principal investigator of the Well Elderly Study which showed the importance of occupational therapy in elderly individuals (Rado, 2004). She received the Eleanor Clarke Slagle Award, which is one of the most distinguished awards an occupational therapist can receive. I chose the 2004 lecture by Ruth Zemke, "Time, Space, and the Kaleidoscope of Occupation" because I was intrigued to see how Zemke connected a kaleidoscope to occupation. In this lecture, Zemke talks about how occupational therapy can be compared to a "kaleidoscope." She says that like a kaleidoscope interacts with multiple reflections, occupation interacts with multiple elements. The main elements Zemke describes are time and space. She explains how we view time differently based on the oc...
