Activity Analysis: A Young Woman Who Leaves To Take A Phone Call

This activity analysis focuses on a young woman who leaves her desk to take a phone call. It examines the physical demands, sensory skills demands, and cognitive and perceptual demands involved in the activity.

Activity Analysis
A Young Woman Who Leaves To Take A Phone Call
Requirements of an Activity
Participant
Number of participants involved?
Participant’s specification, e.g.
age, gender, culture (etc.)
Practical requirements
Tools, equipment, materials,
resources and environment
Timing of events
Events which are essential to the
activity
Order or sequence of the event
It is an independent activity
Two women within the age group 20 to
30 are seen sitting side by side busy with
office work.
One table, two chairs, cell phone, one
cup of drinks, papers on the table are also
seen, Her colleague was busy with her
work.
Two young women were working in a
well furnished office. They were sitting
side by side. At that time a call came to
the first woman. She was drinking tea or
coffee with a cup in her left hand. The
second woman was not happy as she felt
disturbed because of the phone call. The
woman who has received the call looked
helplessly at the other woman, said sorry
and went out of the room to continue the
conversation.
Performance Components:
A: Physical Demands
Posture
(Position held when sitting or standing)
What posture is adopted?
Balance
Is balance required?
Movement
Joints involved – names and types of
joints.
Types of movement
Name of movement, e.g. flexion,
extension,
abduction and adduction
Bilateral (both limbs in unison) or
unilateral (one limb) movement
Assisted movement or resisted (force
1. While sitting on a chair doing office
work, the woman’s back was rested on
the back of the chair and holding the cup
with her left hand but the back was erect.
When she got up from the chair, she
pushed the chair backwords, kept the cup
on the table, took the mobile on her right
hand, started moving towards the exit
door, started back towards her colleague
to indicate sorry in a signed language ,
opened the exit door and got out of the
room.
Definitely balance is required during
sudden standing with mobile in hand
with more anxiety to receive the call.
When she stood up she was erect.
Movement (Wagman, Håkansson &

against the movement)
Range of movement at each joint
Strength – high, moderate or low
Endurance – high, moderate or low
Motor skills
(involves brain, nerves and muscles
combined)
Fine or gross movement
Motor planning (conceive, plan, and carry
out a movement in the correct sequence)
Hand
Unilateral or bilateral use
Use of dominant hand or non-dominant
hand
Degree of manipulation (negotiate,
control, influence)
Dexterity (ability to perform an action
skilfully)
Degree of precision (ability to be exact
and accurate)
Types of grip required
Björklund, 2012): Joints involved-
Ankles, knees, elbows, spine, hips,
shoulders, proximal radioulnar, wrists,
thumbs, fingers, metacarpal phalangeal ,
proximal interphalangeal joints and distal
phalangeal joints (Kielhofner, 2009).
The movements involved in getting up
include flexing the buttocks muscles,
flexing the thighs and calves, stabilizing
the movement and knees to lift you from
your starting position. The thigh muscles
and quadriceps must be contracted for
stabilization. When she stood up, she was
having the mobile on the right hand with
elbow in a bent position making an angle
of 45 degree. That means it is a flexion
body movement. The left elbow was also
in a bent flexion position making an angle
of 90 degree.
The movement was initially unilateral as
there was a movement of one leg, then
the movement was bilateral as both the
leg movements were in unison.
Movement is assisted as it is not against a
force. Strength and endurance are of a
low- medium level. Since there was no
movement of the arms at the time of her
walking, it is an example of fine motor
movement. Motor planning was also
perfect.
Hand Both the hands were co-ordinated
with right hand holding the mobile and
left hand indicating something to her
colleague. So this is an example of
bilateral use of hand. Here right hand is
used to pick up the mobile and receive
the phone call , so this is a dominant hand
whereas the left hand was used for
showing expression, it is non-dominant
hand. Degree of manipulation was
negotiate, as was evident from the left
hand movement when her colleague felt
disturbed because of the phone call. She
has shown dexterity by her action of
receiving the call after leaving the room
so that her colleague is not disturbed. The
degree of precision of her hand
movement was accurate and grip was also
firm.
B: Sensory Skills Demands
Vestibular
Vestibular ( Duncan, 2011) :
Maintenance of the balance of

(Inner ear perception of body position,
movement – sense of balance)
Detect, maintain or change position in
space.
Maintain balance
Proprioceptive
Sense of the position of one's own parts
of the body and strength of effort made
when moving
Touch (Tactile)
Detect and discrimination of pressure,
temperature, pain, shape, size, form,
weight.
Stereognosis - (the ability to recognise by
‘feel’ alone the size, shape, and texture of
an object)
Hearing
Detect, locate and differentiate sound,
e.g. sources, volume, tone and pitch
Smell (Olfactory)
Detect, locate, identify and discriminate
different smells, odours and fragrances
Taste
Detect, identify and discriminate different
tastes
Vision
Near acuity or far acuity, colour vision or
night vision
body is required when she got up
from the chair with one hand
occupied with the mobile and left hand
rested on the table. The body movement
was because of the pressure created by
both the feet. Moreover when she was
moving towards the exit door, she turned
back suddenly to indicate something to
her colleague , opened the door with left
hand. In the entire activity body balance
was required.
Proprioceptive
She should be aware of where are the
different body parts in relation to the
table when she got up from the chair
without any support by applying pressure
on her limbs, that means maintenance of
balance may require counterbalancing
with limbs;. Proprioception, means sense
of self Proprioceptors are sensors that
provide information about joint angle,
muscle length, and muscle tension,
feeding the brain with the necessary
information about the position of the limb
at a given time. She maintained perfect
balance as she applied pressure with both
the limbs together on the floor, supported
her balance by touching the table with left
hand though right hand was occupied
with the mobile.
Tactile (touch). Touch is processed
through the sense known as 'Tactile'.
Tactile receptors are all over the body in
our skin which identify the sensation of
touch. Here tactile sense comes
automatically into play when she got up
from the chair, by touching the table with
her left hand. Tactile sense detects and
discriminates pressure, temperature,
pain, shape, size, form, weight. It is a
somatic sensation that means it originates
at the surface of the body, rather than
internally.
Stereo gnosis The mental perception of
depth or three-dimensionality by the
senses. In this case the senses of the
woman automatically calculated the
required pressure to push the chair back,
hold the mobile with a proper grip so that
it should not fall down.
Hearing In this case the hearing

sensation was active to identify that the
sound coming was from the mobile phone
by identifying the ring tone of the set.
The other woman was also affected by
the same sound as it was annoying to her.
The organ for hearing is the ear. It is one
of the most complex and useful organs in
our body. When listening to sounds it's all
about vibration. Vibrations cause sound
waves with a frequency range which
cause the ear drum to vibrate and the
ultimate decoding is done by brain to
identify the actual sound and the source.
Smell (Olfactory)
In this case study there is no effect of
smell.
Taste
In this case study the taste organ was
working when she was taking a cup of
tea/coffee.
Vision
–may be required to see the mobile from
where sound was coming. It was also
required to see her colleague sitting by
her side, moreover it was also required to
locate the exit door. It was also required
to calculate the distance between the
chair and the exit door to calculate the
number of steps required to reach the exit
door.
C: Cognitive and Perceptual
Demands
Initiation and termination of
tasks or activities
Includes motivation & determination
Orientation
Awareness to time, place and
person
Attention span
(the amount of concentrated time
one can spend on a task without
becoming distracted)
Concentration
(The action or power of focusing all
one's attention)
C: Cognitive and Perceptual Demands
This initiates the sensation to receive the
call, not to disturb her colleague and
leave the room to receive the call outside.
Orientation
This is regarding awareness at the
appropriate time to receive the call and
start talking without disturbing others.
This sensation has made her leave the
room before starting the conversation.
Concentration & attention span
Low level of concentration needed, it
comes automatically to hold the phone ,
left the cup on the table, got up from the
chair and left the room as quickly as
possible to receive the call.
To understand the relationship

Understanding of relationships
between objects or concepts
Memory
Short term memory
Long term memory
Sequencing
Visual recognition and
discrimination
of objects including colour, shapes,
forms, foreground or background
(i.e. ground-figure discrimination),
numbers and words
Problem solving
Reasoning
(logical consideration)
Judgement and risk evaluation.
Decision making, planning and
organising.
Creativity, imagination and
improvisation (being and creating
action without pre-planning)
Numerical skills
Spatial awareness
Discrimination of location of self,
objects, size and depth
Temporal awareness
(Awareness of the passage of time)
Concepts of time, recognition and
monitoring of use of time
between concepts and objects (
Perlman,Weston & Gisel, 2010)
Having an understanding of what for the
ringtone was coming and how to use the
mobile to receive a call.
Memory (Short term ,Long term ) and
sequencing
High level of memory input both short
term in remembering where is the place
to have private conversation without
disturbing others, how to reach the place,
how to operate a mobile phone to receive
the call, how to end a call and long term
memory is for sequencing i.e. holding the
mobile with right hand, leaving the cup
on the table, getting up from the chair and
to go outside the room to receive the
phone call.
Visual recognition and discrimination
This sensation comes automatically by
identifying the mobile by colour, shape
and form and identifying the incoming
call by the number or name displayed on
the set. Moreover the same sensation is
active in identifying the call receive and
end button. Visual recognition helps in
identifying all objects like table, chair,
cup, her colleague, the exit door, the
distance between the chair and the exit
door. Discrimination sensation allows to
distinguish between different objects.
Problem solving This sensation is active
in identifying the problem. In this case
the woman solved the problem arisen due
to the noise created by the mobile phone
to get up quickly from the place and
received the call outside so that her
colleague is not disturbed due to her
conversation with the caller.
Reasoning (logical consideration)
This sensation is active in this case also.
The logical reasoning is the fundamental
part of assessment. Here the woman
assessed the importance of receiving the
call and also the importance not to disturb
others by moving out of the room to
receive the call.
Judgement and risk evaluation.
This is also the sequence to logical
reasoning. Judgement is used extensively
to assess the inputs and processes to solve
an issue. Before the judgement risk

assessment is done to assess if any risk is
involved while applying the processes. In
this case the risk element is receiving the
call at the place of work because it would
cause discomfort to her colleague,
judgment is the decision taken by the
woman to receive the call outside the
room.
Decision making, planning and
organising.
This process is also connected to
judgment and risk assessment. Here the
woman took the decision to leave the cup
on the table, receiving the call was more
important than finishing the drinks. She
planned to pacify her colleague because
of the disturbance from the sound ,
planned to go outside the room to receive
the call. Here all the processes planning,
decision making and organising are
involved.
Imagination, creativity, improvisation
The system of events after the call came
is an unplanned activity and these senses
came into play automatically to receive
the call outside.
Numerical and literacy skills
In this case study numerical and literacy
skills are not displayed to that extent
except identifying the incoming call
displayed on the mobile set through
number or name.
Spatial awareness
To be aware of the location of the mobile
set, where is the exit door and how much
distance to reach the exit door. Moreover
while pushing the chair backwards,
whether there is any space behind the
chair.
Temporal awareness
Here the woman felt it necessary to
receive the call as quickly as possible and
so she left the room fast without
disturbing her colleague.

D: Social Skills Demands
Type of interaction
Structured, unstructured or
spontaneous interaction
Individual or group interaction
Cooperation (working together
towards a common goal) or
competition
Interpersonal skills
(communication with others) -
articulate and express to the other
people verbally and non-verbally
Intrapersonal skills
(self-talk)
Comprehension
Understand verbal and non-verbal
communication
Cultural meaning and relevance
How different cultures, social
backgrounds, religions and customs
may influence a person in carrying
out an activity?
D: Social Skills Demands
Type of interaction
There was a spontaneous interaction of
the woman with her colleague when the
call came. She was a little embarrassed
for causing disturbance to her colleague.
There may be a structured instruction
from the employer not to receive calls at
the place of work.
Interpersonal skills
.
The woman has interacted with her
colleague verbally as well as non-verbally
to share the discomfort of her colleague
because of the noise of the phone. She
has used very efficiently her interpersonal
skills.
Intrapersonal skills (self-talk) (Deveci
& Nunn, 2017)
She was using intrapersonal skills by self
talking when the call came, to share the
concern of her colleagues due to the noise
of the phone.
Comprehension
The woman understood the displeasure
shown by her colleague by making out
the meaning of the non-verbal
communication of her colleague.
Cultural meaning and relevance Muir,
2012)
The woman is working at a place where
there are some rules and regulations.
Most of the organizations due to allow
use of cell phones when they are seated in
an open area with other colleagues. She
was guided by the rules and regulations
not to receive calls when other people are
also working. She could have kept the
phone in the vibration mode that could
have been better. But still we appreciate
the woman to do her best to move out of
the room as quickly as possible to receive
the call.
The theory of occupational therapy
practice is used for various interventions
for pediatric patients (Kramer,2018),
mental patients or people suffering from
pains on the bac. (Pendleton & Schultz-
Krohn, 2017).

References :
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