How Occupational Therapy Can Help You
If you are someone with a chronic debilitating health problem or are living with a disability you might want to engage the services of an occupational therapist. Occupational therapy focuses on teaching you how to adapt to your physical impairments by helping you to learn or relearn how to perform a variety of tasks in different spheres of life such as at home, school, or work. Occupational therapy can be instrumental in alleviating pain, injury, illness, or a disability that prevents you from completing daily activities like household chores, personal care, or participating in social activities.
If any of this describes your situation or sounds helpful to you, it’s important for you to contact an NDIS occupational therapist, the healthcare professional who will evaluate your case and design your treatment plan with the input of your doctors and other medical professionals you are working with, in order to implement your occupational therapy and get you on the road to feeling and doing better.
Your therapy regimen will help you adjust and even improve your range of motion so that you can take better care of yourself, and complete tasks in your daily life such as:
- Bathing and grooming
- Getting dressed
- Eating and drinking unassisted
- Tidying up your home
- Doing the laundry
- Enjoying leisure activities on your own
- Completing office or school work
You might be wondering, how does an occupational therapist know how to help me? First, they have graduate training in the field of occupational therapy. As health professionals, they must be licensed and pass a national exam before they can be certified to practice in the field. Occupational therapists often undergo further training to specialise in certain treatments such as working with disabled children or the elderly, hand therapy, treating individuals with low vision, and other potentially debilitating health issues.
You might also meet an occupational therapy assistant who helps out with some aspects of your treatment. These helpful occupational assistants do not assess you or create your treatment plan and are required to possess an associate’s degree in the field.
Your occupational therapist and occupational therapy assistant will also collaborate with your doctor, psychologist, physical therapist, and any other health professionals working with you on your case in order to give you the best healthcare possible.
Occupational therapists are concerned with how you do activities or tasks in order to help you perform them more easily and with less discomfort. On your first appointment, you should expect that your occupational therapist will:
-Evaluate your case to determine your baseline status and consider the tissues to be treated to improve your range of motion, balance and strength.
-Discuss your case and set appropriate goals to guide further treatment sessions.
-Address any concerns you may have about your treatment plan.
Your occupational therapist will implement a variety of treatment techniques including modalities, manual therapy, and therapeutic exercise. If you are interested in occupational therapy in Australia click here for more information.
Deepa Mahar is an independent blogger and admin of DeepAdvices who is exploring the beauty of the blog writing from a variety of subjects and books to health, science and others. She believes the blog would be helpful to the reader in the context of knowledge. She is post-graduated with a degree of Biotechnology.
