OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY
Occupational therapy (OT) is very similar to physical therapy, but with very key factors that differentiate the two.
Occupational therapy, like physical therapy also seeks to help clients regain autonomy due to pain, injury, or illness. The primary goal here is to restore the client back to the workplace, or whatever activities of daily living (ADLs) they had prior. It is to treat the client as a whole.
It defers from physical therapy in that occupational therapy is to help clients adapt to a certain condition or disease, while physical therapy is to rehabilitate injury and prevent reinjury. Occupational therapy is therefore ordered over physical therapy ordered when the physician determines that the affected client cannot be realistically restored to their prior state, and will instead have to adapt a different, but beneficial way of life.
An example would be a client who suffered an accident and will be a paraplegic going forward, vs. an individual who suffered a motorcycle accident that resulted in a knee down amputation. Both could end up on physical therapy for varying amount of times, but the former is a prime case of occupational therapy.
Occupational Therapy can also be ordered for those who have been dealing with the struggles of certain chronic or lifelong conditions, without realizing that help is out there to make life better for them. Such conditions are like the following:
Poor balance
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Mental Health Issues
Alzheimer’s Disease.
When ordered, a Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OT/OTD) will visit the home and build a care plan with goals that are important to the client. Then they will carry out therapeutic visits, often with the help of assistants of occupational therapy, OTAs, (like the PTAs mentioned under Physical Therapy).
Occupational therapy staff will work based off the schedule of the client and discharge only when satisfactory levels have been met.