Occupational Therapy: Keeping you busy to stay healthy

Various studies around the world have proved that occupational therapy can be beneficial to people of all ages, from all walks of life. A well-known supporter of occupational therapy from the American Occupational Therapy Association William Rush Dunton explains that occupational therapy is to promote the ideas that occupation is a basic human need, and that occupation is therapeutic.

Occupational therapist Mohammad Fardeen Mowlabucus explains the various benefits of occupational therapy. Fardeen Mowlabucus explains that occupational therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well-being through occupation. “The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement,” he says. 

How does it help? 

According to the therapist, occupational therapy helps people across the lifespan to do the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of daily activities (occupations). “Occupational therapist enables people of all ages to live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, and prevent or live better with injury, illness, or disability. Common occupational therapy interventions include helping children with disabilities (children with special needs) to participate fully in school and social situations, helping people recovering from injury to regain skills, and providing supports for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive changes.”

Fardeen Mowlabucus lists the following therapy services: 

• An individualized evaluation/ assessment, during which the client/family and occupational therapist determine the person’s goals,
• Customized intervention to improve the person’s ability to perform daily activities and reach the goals, and
• An outcomes evaluation/ reassessment to ensure that the goals are being met and/or make changes to the intervention plan to ensure that goals set are met.

Additionally, the occupational therapist lists the following needs for opting for occupational therapy: 

• To prevent unnecessary hospital stays or premature nursing home admissions, for example for a carpal Tunnel Syndrome, a splint can be use instead of surgery.
• It prevents work injuries due to poor work station positioning simultaneously increasing growth yield at work.
• It discouraged school dropouts due to poor attention spans, or reading and writing difficulties as Occupational therapist provide intervention through play, ‘LEARN THROUGH PLAY’. Children with learning difficulties will be more interested in learning through these interventions.
• It prevents unemployment among people with a developmental disability or people with a mental illness, as occupational therapist will adapt their work place and help them to overcome difficulties facing at work in a different way

The Benefits

Any person, regardless of age, can benefit from occupational therapy if they are unable to, or find it difficult to participate in a desired activity, states Fardeen Mowlabacus. “Occupational therapists have training and knowledge in physical and psychosocial development and disorders and therefore look at the whole person, not just the physical aspects of the person’s problem. They also look at these problems or risks in terms of how they affect someone’s function. By seeing an occupational therapist, people develop the skills for the job of living so they are able to participate more fully in the life they choose, or to prevent a disruption in their day-to-day living. Occupational therapy benefits the individual and those around them such as teachers, employers, parents, spouses and other family members.” 

According to him, occupational therapy can help overcome and/or develop strategies to cope with:

• Mobility and seating problems due to developmental disorders, arthritis, a spinal cord injury or simply the ageing process.
• Managing pain due to an automobile accident, burns, incorrect lifting, arthritis, repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Returning to work after an injury or prolonged illness.
• Discovering memory aids and other tricks for people who complain of poor memory due to ageing, Alzheimer’s, stress, etc.

Helping people with disability 

Fardeen Mowlabucus reveals that an occupational therapist may help people with disability to overcome their disability by educating or instructing them on how to do things with the abilities they have, for examples how to remember things when your memory is poor, how to dress or cook using one arm, how to manage time and money, how to get around in your community, while using a wheelchair. 

“Suggesting activities that will help them to improve or maintain the abilities they have or are weak in. For example, increasing strength, increasing self-esteem, increasing your coordination, improving your concentration, minimizing or preventing deformity of your hands after an injury. The occupational therapist may adapt the materials people with disability use in the occupations they want to do by making or recommending: changes in the things you use around the house.” 

Many times, the occupational therapist recommends changes to the environments, for instance wheelchair ramps, widening doorways, lowering/raising desk tops, counter tops, or cupboards and reorganization of living space. All these details help the person live a better life.