What is Occupational Therapy?
In its simplest terms, Occupational Therapists and Occupational Therapy Assistants help people of all ages participate in the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of everyday activities (occupations). Common occupational therapy interventions include assisting children with disabilities to participate fully in school and social situations, helping people recovering from injury to regain skills, and providing support for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive changes.
What Services Can Our Occupational Therapists Provide Your Residents?
Our Occupational Therapists will provide services in your facility utilizing five main intervention approaches:
- CREATE, PROMOTE – creating programs to promote health and wellness for your long-term residents
- ESTABLISH, RESTORE – improving skills or abilities lost or impaired by illness or injury
- MAINTAIN – developing maintenance programs to prevent a decline in function or physical abilities
- MODIFY – changing, modifying, or adapting the task or environment to promote increased independence
- PREVENT – reducing the risk of injury by altering the environment or improving the resident’s physical or cognitive abilities
These intervention approaches are used in isolation or in combination to address the following areas:
Balance
Stability while sitting and standing is critical in the prevention of falls and injury during all daily activities, from walking and transfers to sitting at a table for a meal.
Pain Management
Coping with pain can be an all- encompassing, debilitating problem. Our OT’s use many different techniques, including massage, stretching, ultrasound, and electrical stimulation to reduce or even eliminate pain. As a result, this will enable a resident to function more independently in their daily life.
Cognition
Addresses actions or behaviors a client uses to plan and manage the performance of an activity. Our ultimate goal is to improve the resident’s ability to complete ADLs (listed below) and reduce safety risks, such as forgetting to turn off the stove.
Activities Of Daily Living (ADLS)/Self Care
The ultimate goal of addressing ADL’s is to enable residents to complete many of the following tasks without help from another person. The end result will be to make them more independent in their daily lives.
- Feeding/Self Feeding
- Toileting
- Dressing
- Grooming
- Bathing
Functional Transfers
The ultimate goal of addressing deficits in functional transfers is to enable residents to complete as much of their mobility needs as possible without help from another person. Functional transfers include the ability to safely and efficiently move with or without assistance from initial location to a destination and back, for example:
- Getting into and out of a shower/tub
- Getting from a bed to a wheelchair and back
- Getting onto and off of the toilet
Home Care Skills
The ability to complete the following tasks or to direct another person to carry them out is critical in safely returning to a home environment.
- Housekeeping
- Meal Preparation
- Laundry
- Medication Management
