Occupational Therapy

What is occupational therapy?

The field of occupational therapy (OT) centers around understanding what activities are meaningful to individual patients in their day-to-day lives, and helping them to increase mobility around those activities so they can get back to fully participating in them. Occupational therapy focuses on helping clients gain or regain the ability to participate in their activities of daily living. Since we use our arms and hands to participate in our daily activities, you will often see occupational therapy treatment focus on upper body function. OTs are able to address visual, cognitive, and physical skill deficits, make adaptive equipment recommendations, and provide modification strategies in order to optimize performance, independence, and satisfaction with life occupations.

Types of occupational therapy
OT specialties are defined by either diagnosis, or the population of people affected. Occupational therapists consider what stage of their lifespan a patient is in, as well as their specific injuries. OT therapists are especially skilled to look at the holistic impact of an injury on each patient, evaluate the activities patients want to return to, and break those down to identify where there might be limitations or dysfunctions.

Orthopedic occupational therapy
Orthopedic OT will assess and treat acquired, chronic, and congenital upper extremity physical concerns with the goal of improving functional and physical independence in patient-selected occupations and goals. Orthopedic OTs are confident in creating comprehensive therapy plans for many conditions including upper body weakness, overuse injuries, arthritis, fractures, burns, and nerve palsies.

Neurological occupational therapy
Neurological occupational therapy focuses on helping clients gain or regain daily living skills either following a neurological event such as a stroke, brain injury, or spinal cord injury, or when living with a condition that affects the central nervous system such as Parkinson’s Disease, cerebral palsy, or multiple sclerosis. Our goal is to help you safely participate in daily activities that are most important to you at the highest level of independence possible.

Pediatric occupational therapy
Children are involved in many activities throughout their day that are important in their development. Occupational therapy promotes independent participation in these activities by addressing the skills necessary for function. Pediatric occupational therapy specialists support children and adolescents in meaningful activities such as play, social interaction, education, feeding, and self-care skills addressing motor skills, sensory processing, motor planning/praxis, visual motor development, and manipulation/dexterity. Occupational therapists are skilled to assess the environment to make needed modifications/adaptations to support independent participation. As families are an integral part of the treatment team, pediatric occupational therapists work with families to create an individualized home program, educating them on strategies, and empowering all caregivers to promote success in the child’s environment(s).

Hand occupational therapy and splinting
Hand therapy is a clinical practice that focuses on rehabilitation of specific injuries and conditions of the elbow, wrist and hand. Hand therapy addresses conservative and post-operative treatment through exercises, education, soft tissue/manual therapy and custom splint fabrication in order to improve function for daily activity use. A Certified Hand Therapist, who has a CHT designated credential, has specialized training in hand therapy with advanced clinical skills in upper extremity rehabilitation. This credential assures that the therapist has achieved the highest level of competency by passing a national board certification. Brooks Rehabilitation hand therapists are certified by the Hand Therapy Certification Commission (HTCC) and are members of the American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT).

Who needs occupational therapy?
Occupational therapy can help anyone who has experienced an interruption to their development, who has an acute or traumatic injury, or who has a chronic or progressive condition. If a patient’s mobility is impacted by any one of these, OT can help them rehabilitate.

Benefits of occupational therapy
Occupational therapy allows patients to participate in the meaningful activities they wish to participate in by helping them to regain function, including:
• Increased independence with activities of daily living
• Decreased caregiver burden
• Improved confidence in caregiver ability to care for loved one
• Improved safety during activities of daily living
• Fall prevention
• Home program independence to maintain progress gained during therapy