How can OT help you?
Do you suffer from a temporary or permanent disability?
Do you struggle to get around your home or up/down the stairs?
Do you have difficulty getting in/out of the shower/bath, bed, on/off chair or toilet?
Do you struggle with making drinks, snacks or meals?
Are there hobbies that you used to do that you no longer can do e.g. accessing the community?
Are you frustrated with long waiting lists for community services?
If you answer yes to any of the above, ckOTs can help!
The focus of Occupational Therapy is on: occupation. That doesn’t necessarily mean employment. An occupation is any activity you carry out either on a daily basis or less frequently. This can be anything from getting washed and dressed, to cooking a meal for your family or going dancing.
Occupational Therapy categorises occupations into three different areas:
- Personal e.g. getting washed & dressed in the mornings
- Productive e.g. a paid or voluntary role
- Leisure e.g. swimming, walking, reading etc
The OT together with you will assess the following areas:
- Your home environment
- how you function within that environment e.g. move around,
- the activities you want to do e.g. showering, cooking, walking to the shops, participating in hobbies
Then the OT will try to find different ways to enable you to carry out your preferred activities by either:
- adapting your environment e.g. providing equipment to help OR
- adapting the way in which you carry out your preferred activities e.g. sitting down to complete tasks rather than standing up,
Within OT the focus is always be on achieving goals set by you, the client, not the OT
However large or small the goal is, the OT will work with you to achieve this. Quite often large goals e.g. to return to dancing may need to be broken down into smaller goals, almost like stepping stones to the larger goal.
Have a look at these short videos for further explanation: