Unlocking the Potential: The Power of Occupational Therapy

What is Occupational Therapy? How does it work?

Occupational therapy focuses on helping individuals of all age groups participate in meaningful daily activities essential to their well-being, independence, and happiness. These therapists work with individuals facing physical, cognitive, emotional, or environmental challenges, restricting them from regular self-care tasks. 

The Role of Occupational Therapists:

1- Holistic Approach: Thorough assessment is the core of occupational therapy. Even that’s what helps the therapists to know better about their clients. They analyze the client’s overall health, including physical, mental, emotional and social well-being.

2- Client-Centered Care: The therapies are tailored to each person's unique needs, goals, and values, ensuring that interventions are meaningful and relevant. Therapists work closely with clients and their families, creating a supportive partnership to achieve optimal results.

3- Enablement: OTs focus on helping individuals regain or develop the skills required for day-to-day activities rather than simply compensating for limitations. They craft individualized treatment plans for the clients. Their plans and strategies include exercises, meditations, assistive devices, and more, focussing on the client’s mental and physical well-being.

What does occupational therapy do? Know the benefits..

Occupational therapy is somewhat different from other healthcare therapies. Until now, we have only heard about the therapies for major injuries and chronic diseases. As explained above, occupational therapy comprises an individual’s physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. 

Below, we have listed the benefits of occupational therapy. Let’s understand them.

1. Improve Range of Motion & Strength Safely

As explained above, occupational therapies target physical health, too. After surgery, stroke or arthritis, patients find changes in their joint movements, such as shoulder joint. Occupational therapists work with the clients to improve their motion range with the following:

A- Passive Motion Range- Therapists stimulate the client’s performance by helping them make small joint-related movements, also called active assistive range of motion.

B- Active Range of Motion- When the patient moves or performs joint-related movements independently with no physical assistance is called active range of motion. Therapists guide the patients to perform appropriate movements according to their health condition. 

C- Proper Body Positioning-  The positioning exercise like lying down on the back or side also encourages independent function in patients with a full range. In a lying position, the gravity resistance decreases while improving the ease of joint mobility. Pain can easily occur if people push themselves too hard or fast while positioned poorly.

D- Compensatory Prevention Techniques- These strategies are designed to bypass loss of strength to allow for some movement while producing strength. A common compensatory technique that is being followed among people with weak shoulders is shrugging the shoulder upward and bringing the arm close to the body.  Although it brings improvements and allows some motion, but creates pain and further decreases strength over time as well. It will hurt your posture.

2- Get Adaptive Strategies

Needing help to perform some regular life activities is not ideal. Occupational therapist’s ultimate job is to improve their client’s ability to perform regular activities independently. An experienced therapist can help the patient improve their motion range, and it’s done mostly naturally with simple therapeutic activities. But in some cases, many aggressive adaptive strategies or adaptive equipment also come into play for bringing effective results.

3- Memory Rehabilitation

After studying physical benefits, it’s time to know the mental health benefits of occupational therapy, too. The therapy here is especially helpful for elderly people who tend to suffer some degree of memory loss. It's even helpful for those who suffer from anxiety and depression. They provide quality anxiety and depression treatment.

Listed below are different ways therapists help elderly patients regain their memory skills. 

A- Practice memory-engaging activities, like puzzles, crossword puzzles, matching games, etc. 

B- Using sign boards and placing stop signs on front doors or gates for elderly patients to avoid their feeling of disorientation and wandering. 

C- Teaching the patient's family the non-defensive technique to deal with patients better and avoid their feelings of sudden personality changes. Therapists also teach the techniques to avoid confusion in the patient’s memory. 

For example, placing out limited clothing options to ease the patient and avoid them thinking about the current season.

4. Better Life Outlook 

Excluding all the above benefits, the best benefit of occupational therapy is providing people with a better outlook on life. This is something that everyone wants. However, it’s seen commonly in the elderly due to their growing age and increasing dependencies. Now, we also find adults or kids being demotivated about life due to their negative thoughts or the environment in which they live. This mandates the importance of occupational therapists in life. The therapist helps in restoring the lost confidence and positivity in life.

The Occupational Therapy Process

Occupational therapists (OT) follow comprehensive assessments to understand the client’s abilities, goals, and limitations. The process involves analyzing their physical, cognitive, emotional, and environmental factors.

1- Goal Setting: Therapists work collaboratively with clients to establish specific and achievable goals that align with the client's abilities, aspirations and priorities. It helps them to know their clients better and serves as a roadmap for treatment.

2- Intervention: Based on the assessment and goals, OTs develop interventions that may include therapeutic activities, exercises, adaptive techniques, assistive devices, and environmental modifications. These help the patients in an effective and quicker way. 

3- Progress Monitoring: Evaluate the client’s progress regularly to track the improvements and areas where they need to push more. These outcomes are not solely measured in terms of physical improvements but also in the context of enhanced independence in daily activities, improved quality of life, and increased social participation.

Occupational therapies work with diverse age groups plus categories, including the following:

1- Children: Addressing their developmental delays and promoting school readiness.

2- Adults: Assisting with rehabilitation after surgeries, injuries, or managing chronic medical conditions.

3- Seniors: Enhancing their independence and life quality with their growing age.

Occupational Therapy: Techniques and Tools

Therapeutic Activities: These include creative arts, games, exercises, and life skills training to improve physical and cognitive function. It charges the body’s whole system and promotes overall well-being.

Assistive Devices: Recommends and teaches clients to use mobility ads, communications tools, or adaptive kitchen equipment. These devices aim to distract their mind from something useful and enjoy activities that stabilize their mind. 

Environmental Adaptations: Therapists modify home or workplace environments for accessibility and safety. Setting a healthy and peaceful environment around clients helps get quicker results. It encourages mental well-being and better concentration.

Collaborative Approach: Occupational therapists often work as a healthcare team, collaborating with physical therapists, psychologists, speech therapists, and other professionals. This multidisciplinary approach provides comprehensive care and a well-rounded perspective on the client's major needs. The therapists collaborate closely with clients' families and caregivers to form a supportive environment around them.

Measurement & Outcomes: Regular performance check is fundamental to every job. The same goes for occupational therapies. Therapists check your performance regularly to adjust plans per the client’s progress. The measurement process is a bit different here. The results here are based on the context of enhanced independence in daily activities, life quality and increased social participation.

Occupational therapy (OT) vs Physical Therapy (PT)

Occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) are two distinct but often complementary healthcare professions that focus on improving a person's overall well-being and quality of life. While there is some overlap in their roles, their primary goals, methods, and areas of specialization differ. Here are the key differences between occupational therapy and physical therapy:

Purpose and Focus:

Occupational Therapy (OT): Occupational therapists primarily focus on helping individuals develop or regain the skills needed for daily activities or "occupations." These occupations can include self-care tasks (e.g., bathing, dressing), productivity (e.g., work or school-related tasks), and leisure activities. OT aims to enhance a person's ability to engage in these activities, considering physical, cognitive, emotional, and environmental factors.

Physical Therapy (PT): Physical therapists concentrate on restoring or improving an individual's physical function, mobility, and strength. They work to address movement impairments, pain, and physical disabilities resulting from injuries, surgeries, or medical conditions. PT often focuses on the musculoskeletal and neuromuscular systems.

Treatment Techniques:

Occupational Therapy: OTs use various therapeutic techniques to improve a person's fine motor skills, cognitive abilities, and adaptive strategies. This may involve activities such as exercises, adaptive equipment (e.g., splints or adaptive utensils), environmental modifications, and cognitive training.

Physical Therapy: PTs employ a range of physical techniques and exercises to improve a person's strength, flexibility, balance, and overall physical function. Common interventions in PT include manual therapy, therapeutic exercises, modalities (e.g., ultrasound or heat therapy), and gait training.

Concluding Thoughts

In the end, you might be able to understand that occupational therapy is a crucial healthcare field today. It aims to improve the overall health of the human body which includes everything from facing physical challenges to emotional or environmental, the therapy covers everything.

The benefits are vast and aim to leave a long-lasting impact on our lives by simply adding some helpful and right activities in our life. Activities include mental and physical exercises, which we all should do always. Occupational therapists help us improve our body’s motion range, and strength and provide adaptive strategies and equipment to address our issues and ultimately enhance our whole life outlook. 

So, if you need anxiety therapy or even want some better social disorder anxiety treatment, look nowhere and get yourself checked.