Many areas of Occupational Therapy practice include by are not limited to:
Physical Dysfunction Areas
Mental Health Areas
Additional Areas to Explore
- Wellness & Health Promotion
- Work Hardening
- Sensory Integration
- Driver's Evaluation & Training
- Assistive Technology
These areas are just a few of the practice and specialty areas for which Occupational Therapy Assistants might provide intervention:
Physical Dysfunction Areas
Stroke
Occupational Therapy practitioners are important members of the health care team working with people recovering from stroke. They teach individuals who have strokes to cope with disability and to become as independent as possible so they can continue their work and personal lives, manage stress and fatigue, and participate fully in family and community life.
To increase an individual's independence the occupational therapy practitioner may:
- Recommend alerting the home to eliminate hazards to walking or using a wheelchair
- Recommend special devices or aids that can help to perform home and work tasks.
- Recommend methods of dressing and bathing
- Recommend techniques and resources for improving mobility in the home and community.
Multiple Sclerosis
Occupational Therapy is important in helping the individuals with multiple sclerosis to develop or maintain the abilities necessary to productive living. Occupational Therapy addressed five major areas essential to independence, including:
- Managing fatigue through learning to conserve energy, simplify work, and deal with stress.
- Make the most of available body strength and coordination.
- Modifying the environment by providing tools and techniques to promote independence.
- Compensating for difficulties in thinking and planning, visual problems, and loss of sensation.
- Vocational guidance and training.
Home Health Services
Arthritis, hearth disease, stroke, head injury, respiratory disease, hip fracture, cancer, Parkinson's desease, diabetes, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy or multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, developmental disability, cerebral palsy and burns are many of the disabilities that the Occupational Therapy practitioner may work with in the home environment. Occupational Therapy can help at home by:
- Working to aid the individual in being as independent as possible.
- Provide training and recommending equipment to help care for personal needs, such as bathing, dressing and grooming.
- Identify ways in which to prepare meals for the individual and the family.
- Teach how to make the home safer and more accessible when a wheelchair, walker, or other aids must be used. Teaching how to prevent injury and fatigue.
- Arrange supplies and equipment so the individual can continue daily household tasks.
- Design a program of activities and exercise that will help to regain as much function as possible.
Spinal Cord Injury
During hospitalization, Occupational Therapy helps the patient with a spinal cord injury to:
- Learn to care for personal needs, like eating, bathing, and dressing, with the use of adapted techniques and equipment
- Begin a program of exercise and activity to make maximum use of functional abilities.
- Deal with the emotional effects of the injury and adjust to functional limitations.
During rehabilitation, an Occupational Therapy program for a patient with a spinal cord injury often includes:
- Providing adaptive equipment and techniques needed for independence in self-care.
- Promoting maximum function through regular exercise and activity.
- Using aids, such as a wheelchair, to increase mobility at home and in the community.
- Investigating the use of technological aids, such as environmental control units, adapted computers, telephone aids, and communication devices.
- Assessing the ability to operate an adapted automobile and providing driver training.
- Addressing employment options, such as a return to former work, career change, education, and training.
- Planning for a return to community living, including assessing the need for adaptations to the home and work environment to eliminate barriers.
- Exploring the continuation of leisure pursuits and the availability of new options.
Burns
During rehabilitation, Occupational Therapy can help to:
- Improve the appearance and diminish the effects of scarring by applying pressure garments.
- Increase movement of affected limbs through the use of splints, exercise, and activities.
- Assist in coping with the emotional and psychological problems that may result from an injury.
- Provide information on appropriate products and services.
- Make referrals to cosmetologists and other professionals.
- Develop skills needed to resume independence in personal care, career choices, and leisure activities.
Splint & Orthosis
Occupational Therapy practitioners are skilled in evaluating, fabricating, and fitting the proper orthosis and instructing the wearer in its use. An important part of the instruction includes information on use of the orthosis in accomplishing daily tasks. Who can benefit from orthosis:
- Arthritis
- Burns
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
- Cerebral palsy
- Fractures
- Head injury
- Muscular dystrophy
- Multiple sclerosis
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Scoliosis
- Stroke
- Strains and sprains
- Spinal cord injury
- Traumatic injuries
Preventable Pain
Occupational Therapy practitioners are uniquely qualified to treat problems such as repetitive motion injuries.
- To alleviate the pain or discomfort, the therapist may provide the individual with a splint, suggest specific exercises, and examine the work environment to suggest modifications.
- Intervention is designed to eliminate symptoms and prevent re-injury. In modifying the environment the therapist may apply a knowledge of ergonomic principles.
Long-Term Care
Occupational Therapy helps those whose lives have been disrupted by illness and injury to:
- Restore, maintain, or improve daily living skills.
- Participate as fully as possible in meaningful work, leisure, and social activities.
- Cope with the physical and emotional effects of long-term disability.
- Prevent further deterioration through health education, such as energy conservation and joint protection.
- Access community resources and services to help promote safety.
- Organize the living environment and make use of adaptations that promote safety.
Hospice Care
The goal of Occupational Therapy in hospice care is to assist in providing a comprehensive plan of care that adequately addresses issues relating to the patient and family:
- In daily living activities of work, leisure, and self-care.
- By involving the patient and family in the adaptation process, the quality of life is enhanced and the patient is able to retain some degree of independence in life skills in the presence of advancing functional loss.
Learning Through Play
The Occupational Therapy practitioner can assist in a child's growth and development through:
- Neurological and muscular development.
- Emotional development and behavior management.
- Effects of birth injuries and illness on growth and development.
- Activities and toys that promote healthy development.
Neonatal Intensive Care
Occupational Therapy intervention in the NICU focuses on three areas: the infant, the family, and the environment (both physical and social). Occupational Therapy seeks to promote psychosocial, motor, and sensory development through:
- Facilitation of parental attachment and the parents' comfort/competency in tending to their infant.
- Support development of age-appropriate postures, muscle tone, and reflexes.
- Promote neurobehavioral organization stimulation as tolerated by the infant.
- Prevent deformity through therapeutic positioning and splinting as needed.
- Promote oral feeding.
- Prevent or minimize the effects of illness, disease, or developmental delay.
- Prepare parents for infant's neurodevelopmental, social, and emotional needs after hospital discharge.
- Identify and refer infants who qualify for further early intervention services after discharge.
School Settings
Occupational Therapy services in school settings include:
- Screening to identify children with special needs.
- Conducting comprehensive assessments for occupational therapy needs.
- Contributing to the development of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each child.
- Consult with education staff and parents in carrying out the child's program in the school and home environment.
- Planning and carrying out Individualized Education Program components related to Occupational Therapy goals and objectives.
Occupational Therapy address the functional areas of:
- Self-help
- Functional mobility
- Positioning
- Communication
- Environmental adaptation for access and mobility
- Sensory-motor processing
- Fine and gross motor performance
- Life skills training/vocational skills
- Psychosocial adaptation
Mental Health Areas
Mental Health
Within the scope of mental health, Occupational Therapy can benefit children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly of varying functional levels and diagnoses. Among the diagnostic categories frequently treated are:
- Schizophrenia
- Depression
- Manic depression
- Borderline personality
- Stress reactions
- Chemical dependency
- Eating disorders
- Adolescent adjustment reaction
- Antisocial personality
- Autism
Occupational Therapy is dedicated to helping individuals gain the highest possible degree of functional independence in the tasks of daily life. For those lives impaired by social or emotional problems, Occupational Therapy aids in:
- Improving the cognitive, social, and organizational skills required for success in work, school, and leisure activities.
- Increasing the ability to perform self-care activities, such as personal hygiene, which promote health and social acceptance.
- Increasing skills in community living, such as use of public transportation, to improve self-sufficiency.
- Increase recognition of stress indicators and developing coping skills.
Acute Psychiatric Admissions
Therapeutic activities provided by Occupational Therapy are designed to assist the client in adapting to the social and physical environment through mastery of essential living skills. The program, chosen in consultation with the client, may include the development of performance skills through groups and experimental learning sessions on:
- Home management, self-care and safety activities
- Money management and consumer tasks
- Use of community resources
- Pre-vocational training
- Cognitive skills
- Social, interpersonal and coping techniques
Developmental Disabilities
Occupational Therapy services provided for individuals with developmental disabilities include:
- Screening for developmental delay
- Evaluation of developmental abilities and adaptive functioning
- Collaborating with caregivers in designing and implementing recommendations for achieving the maximum in developmental skills and functional independence.
- Provide purposeful activities to promote developmental abilities and adaptive responses.
- Adapting the environment to aid functional performance, such as providing adapted seating ro assistive technology.
- Achieving psychosocial daily living skills, including self-indentity, situational coping, and community participation.
- Variety and quality in play and pleasure performance.
Adult Day Care
The goal of Occupational Therapy is to increase or maintain an individual's ability to function as independently as possible. Treatment includes a variety of therapeutic activities to enhance the individual's quality of life.
- Assesses the physical and cognitive capacities.
- Designs adaptive equipment to maintain or improve function.
- Teaches skills that promote independence in self-care activities.
- Recommends changes in an individual's living environment to promote safety and self-sufficiency.
- Provide important social, physical, and sensory needs of the adult who has significant health problems, or who is at risk for developing such problems.
NOTE: Areas of practice information provided by "Facts About Occupational Therapy" and "Facts for Consumers" by the American Occupation Therapy Association, Inc., P.O. Box 1725, Rockville, MD 20849-1725. Phone 301-948-9626.