Social Determinants of Health and the Nervous System
Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) is defined as the impact that a person's social environment has on their health. This can include where a person lives, their socioeconomic status, education, transportation, social support, and their access to healthcare. All of these factors are extremely important when it comes to a person's health, including their nervous system.
There are many people in the world who do not have access to quality education, transportation, and many other social determinants of health. This often times can result in an increasing amount of stress for that person, which can ultimately lead to chronic stress. As we have learned in class, this chronic stress causes your adrenal gland to release large amounts of the stress hormone, cortisol. The cortisol then causes your amygdala to throw your emotions all out of whack. This then leads to increasing amounts of anxiety, fear, and worry. This large amount of cortisol also "shuts off" your prefrontal cortex, resulting in diminished executive function abilities. This can affect not only a person's health, but also how they function in their activities of daily living.
UTHSC's OT program requires students to earn service/professional development hours, which I think is very important when it comes time to become OT practitioners. Earning these hours allows students to go out into the community and gain a different perspective on how multiple different people live their lives. By going out into the community, we are better able to learn how to serve others. Being an OT practitioner means being a servant leader, which we are practicing each time we go out into the community to earn our service and professional development hours.
There are many people in the world who do not have access to quality education, transportation, and many other social determinants of health. This often times can result in an increasing amount of stress for that person, which can ultimately lead to chronic stress. As we have learned in class, this chronic stress causes your adrenal gland to release large amounts of the stress hormone, cortisol. The cortisol then causes your amygdala to throw your emotions all out of whack. This then leads to increasing amounts of anxiety, fear, and worry. This large amount of cortisol also "shuts off" your prefrontal cortex, resulting in diminished executive function abilities. This can affect not only a person's health, but also how they function in their activities of daily living.
UTHSC's OT program requires students to earn service/professional development hours, which I think is very important when it comes time to become OT practitioners. Earning these hours allows students to go out into the community and gain a different perspective on how multiple different people live their lives. By going out into the community, we are better able to learn how to serve others. Being an OT practitioner means being a servant leader, which we are practicing each time we go out into the community to earn our service and professional development hours.
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