What Is Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapy helps you take part in the everyday activities that matter most - such as looking after yourself, moving around safely, working, enjoying hobbies, and staying independent.
Occupational Therapists look at the whole picture: you, your environment, and the tasks you want or need to do. By understanding what’s getting in the way, they help you build skills, use helpful strategies, and regain confidence in daily life.
How Occupational Therapy Can Help
When something changes - your health, mobility, thinking skills, or home setup - daily activities can become difficult. An Occupational Therapist works with you to understand these challenges and find practical ways to improve your independence.
Here are some of the ways OT can help:
- Regaining lost skills/learning or developing new skills: Occupational Therapists will try to regain lost skills as much as possible whilst utilising some strategies to compensate in the interim. Regaining lost skills involves repetitive, task-specific practice in a controlled environment. This can then be adjusted to make it more or less challenging depending on your performance at the time. Learning or developing new skills involves different ways of doing things either whilst waiting for recovery or because the old way is no longer an option. Examples:
Repeatedly practicing pouring a drink to retrain the connection between brain and limb post stroke in the kitchen; learning how to use a less dominant hand to brush teeth/ have a shave because of one sided weakness.
- Focusing on independent living skills:
Occupational Therapists aim to keep you as independent as possible for as long as possible. Examples: Practice making a sandwich, or simple meal, so you do not have to rely on a carer; utilising long handles aids to enable your independence with lower half dressing.
- Cognitive rehabilitation: The brain is the central hub for all someone does, and sometimes illness, trauma or overload can prevent it from functioning at its best. It is responsible for attention, memory, organising and processing all the information taken in through the senses. Examples: Occupational Therapists can look at breaking down tasks into smaller chunks to make them more manageable; provide memory strategies to help complete a task.
- Supporting mental health and wellbeing:
Things like anxiety, stress and low mood can limit someone’s participation in everyday life. It is easy to become overwhelmed and feel isolated or like nobody understands. Occupational Therapists can help you to recognise these feelings or triggers and put strategies in place, so you do not feel like this. Examples: exploring mindfulness to make things more manageable; helping to break unhealthy habits and create new purposeful ones.
- Fatigue and pain management: Completing activities after trauma, illness or degenerative/chronic conditions can be difficult. You may feel tired quicker than before or experience periods of pain. Examples: Occupational Therapists can provide planning, pacing and prioritising advice; compensatory strategies to promote healing; non-pharmacological solutions to manage pain.
- Equipment provision, aids and adaptations:
Sometimes having the right tools can help you achieve so much more and balance the amount of energy used in mundane or necessary tasks. Examples: a simple piece of toileting equipment could make getting up from the toilet pain free or safer; a long-handled shoehorn could mean the difference between you putting on your shoes or someone doing it for you.
- Falls prevention: people fall for many different reasons. Occupational Therapists can analyse the factors that can contribute to falls to help reduce them. Where this is difficult, advice can be given on what to do in the event of a fall and how to either get up from the floor or call for help. Examples: environmental assessments can be completed to look at layout changes; moving obstacles out of the way or taping down rugs; advice on lifelines.
- Education: Occupational Therapists can provide information and advice on how to complete everyday tasks to make them less difficult. Sometimes understanding the way the body works or why something is happening can make all the difference. Examples: explaining how the brain works and the reasons something may be difficult like poor working memory; explaining about body mechanics and ergonomics to make standing from sitting easier.
- Vocational Rehab (work) / School settings: OTs can provide support to enable participation in the work/school environment. Examples: workspace assessments to look at what may contribute to fatigue or pain; simplifying tasks or reducing distractions.
Collaboration between Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy
Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy are two distinct but complementary professions. They often work together to help you to achieve the highest possible level of functional independence and quality of life. While each has its specific focus and methodologies, their cooperative approach can be highly beneficial for people, particularly those recovering from injuries, living with disabilities, or managing degenerative/chronic conditions.
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapists help people regain or enhance their physical abilities through facilitation of movement, exercises, manual therapies, technology, education, and the use of therapeutic modalities, to improve symptoms such as, loss of balance, loss of hand and arm function, leg and foot function, walking, spasticity and pain.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational Therapy maximises those gains further through functional activity, using everyday tasks to improve and enable a person to engage in their functional goals, such as making meals/drinks, washing/dressing, engaging in hobbies/interests. Occupational Therapy works to reduce the barriers that prevent you from doing what you find meaningful.
Overall, the complementary nature of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy allows for a more thorough and effective approach to rehabilitation. Clients benefit from a well-rounded treatment plan that not only addresses their immediate physical issues but also improves their overall functional ability to perform daily activities, enhancing their quality of life and fulfilling their independence.
