02-16-1939 Occupational Therapy is Vitally Important Activity at Woodville A. Edwin Canterbury Assisted by Wife in Providing Useful Work And Recreation for Patients at County's Mental Hospitals - Department Has 37 in Personnel By Jimmie McDonald The present Occupational Therapy Department of the Allegheny County Institution District with A, Edwin Canterbury as Director, and Mrs. Canterbury as assistant Director, came into being August 1, 1936. Mr. and Mrs. Canterbury came to Woodville from Harrisburg State Hospital. When they arrived at the Institution they found one Occupational Shop in the Female Mental division serving approximately fifty women, and no shops for the men. In the short space of two years they have added twenty or more shops and have provided Occupational Therapy for every patient in the institution for which it is prescribed. The definition of Occupational Therapy is "Occupational Therapy is any activity, mental or physical, definitely prescribed and guided for the definite purpose of aiding or hastening recovery from disease or injury." The shops are widely varied to suit the needs of the individual patients. Usually a patient is started to work in a shop right off the ward. As he improves he is taken to a shop outside the ward, but in the building; continued improvement will take him to a higher shop out of the building and eventually he will have recovered and is permitted to return home. This is not always the case. Some of the cases never get beyond working in a ward O. T. shop, but in a large number of instances complete recovery is effective. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Canterbury, the O. T. Department has ten Registered Occupational Therapists a librarian Miss Betty Heath; a printer, a musical instructor, Miss Pauline Straka, and a shoemaker. The entire department has a personnel of thirty-seven persons carrying out the doctors prescriptions. In the Female Mental the first O. T. shop is in the Receiving department. Ward eight, the disturbed ward, has a shop right on the ward. The "one and two" shop is in the building but off the ward, the idea is to change the environment of the patient, take him off the ward, if his condition permits, and to create conditions found in our everyday world. The "nine and ten" shop is pre-industrial shop and is out of the building. The old ladies have a pre-industrial shop in Rose Cottage. There is a large sewing room in the Female O. T. Building. This is an industrial shop and most of the sheets, dresses, table cloths, shirts, petticoats, towels, etc. are made in this shop. In addition there is a small patching shop in the laundry that patches sheets and other torn articles after they are laundered. The Male Mental division has several shops on the wards. They also have shock treatment, Insulin shops, which are operated for patients receiving these treatments. The male patients have a large industrial shop where many attractive and useful articles are made. This shop is turning out dozens of Chinese Checker games at the present time and the boards are a credit to their makers. Most of the by-products of Occupational Therapy are absorbed by the Insti- tution. This is the case with the many rugs, pictures, chairs, tables, etc. that are turned out. Stress is not laid on the finished product, however, but upon the effort the making of the article has upon the patient. A patient may purchase and article he has made and occasionally some of the products are sold to "outsiders" but a general market is not solicited. In additional to the Industrial, and pre-industrial shops, the O. T. Depart- ment has a very active Recreational branch. Paul Horowitz supervises this phase of the work. The patients are given gym work in all forms. The newest addition to the gym equipment is a rowing machine. Patients are given a period in a fully equipped Recreation Room. This room has ping-pong tables, two fine billiard tables, shuffle board, and practically every game from hoop-tossing and bean bag on down. The library, donated by almost intact by the Southern Club of Pittsburgh, furnishes reading material for the whole institution, and contains a wide variety of reading material. Miss Heath is quite an entertaining hostess at teas, and patients are eger to be in the library when teas are announced. Music has come to be an important factor in O. T. work. The Female Mental division has a choir that is coming along first rate. The newest in music is a patients' orchestra, and as soon as a sufficient number of instruments are secured, the institution can boast an all-patient band. Other forms of treatment are parties, picnics, card parties, the showing of movies, dramatics and patient dances. The dances and the movies are held on alternate Thursdays and if for any reason it becomes necessary to miss a dance or a movie, the omission immediately becomes chief topic of conversation and continues to hold first place until the next movie or dance is given. Occupational Therapy is not new. There are records of 150 years ago that describe its use. Egyptian and Greek records contain some mention of its benefits. It wasn't until 1914, however thst the name "Occupational Therapy came into its being. There are at the present time, five schools giving courses in Occupational therapy. The demand for O. T. workers far exceeds the supply, and in a country where unemployment is much in evidence, this seems remarkable. Mr. Canterbury has done and continues to do a fine job at Woodville; starting with that one little shop, he has raised his department until it has become the showplace of the institution.