How Important Is Occupational Therapy Anyway?
You never know what might be bubbling just beneath the surface.
Now that we’ve covered what occupation is, who occupational therapists are, the core values they hold, where occupational therapists work, and how they think, it’s time to reflect. Time to pull together all of the knowledge we’ve gained in the last few posts, and talk about why occupational therapy is so important.
In addition to what we’ve previously discussed, one of the most significant assets of occupational therapy is the lens through which the profession views people.
Occupational therapy sees human beings as occupational beings. What does that mean? To put it simply, it means that occupational therapy recognises that people inherently need to be engaged in meaningful and purposeful occupations to be happy and healthy.
An easy way to visualise this is to think about the last time you had an extended vacation, one that seemed to go on forever. You were probably excited at first at the prospect of all that free time; sleeping in, lazy mornings and doing nothing except the bare minimum. You might have even had grand plans that you seemed to breeze through within the first week or two.
But what happened when the reality of no routine, and nothing to do finally settled in? Were you content to go on like that? Or did you eventually start feeling discontent and restless? The discontentment and restlessness show just how integral participation in occupations is to our overall health as human beings. And it gives some critical insight into why occupational therapy views people as occupational beings.
It demonstrates why, as human beings, we consistently need to be engaged in our chosen occupations. We don’t only engage in our occupations to fill time, but to ensure we are leading healthy and fulfilling lives as well. Our occupations form the basis of our habits, our habits form our routines, and the structure provided by those routines give our lives the stability we need to thrive.
Occupational therapy teaches occupational therapists to understand people’s need to be engaged in occupation, and to be sensitive to the multitude of unique ways in which people express this need. This laser focus on the building blocks that make up our day to day reality is one of the skills which sets occupational therapists apart in the realm of healthcare. And makes them valuable assets in any team they’re a part of.
Another asset that occupational therapists have is the ability to use meaningful occupations as both the tool and the outcome of therapy. Occupational therapists are trained to identify and evaluate all the moving parts that influence a person’s life. They work to understand their client’s needs, want, motivations, goals, environments, social support and a multitude of other things. They then relate that understanding to how their clients choose their occupations and engage with those occupations over time.
You can picture a clear example of this by thinking about someone who loves to play the guitar. This person has been playing their entire life, ever since the first time they picked up a guitar. They have lived their life with an abiding love of music and dedicated immense amounts of time and effort to perfect their craft. It influences their social circle, and the activities they participate in, like open mic nights, being part of a band, or their involvement in theatre productions.
Now consider what kind of effect an upper limb injury (which can affect anything from your shoulders to your fingers) would have on this person.
Their favourite pastime (playing the guitar), which is a big part of multiple different aspects of their life, has now been put on hold. The loss of their ability to engage in this activity can affect their personal time, their social involvement, their mood, and so much more even if they have the family/social support needed to do most of the other things they need to do daily. And if they don’t have that social support, the impact of the injury could be much more widespread.
So knowing this, how might an occupational therapist go about working with this client? Once playing the guitar has been identified as the primary goal, the occupational therapist would work on designing a treatment program that has guitar practice as a central element.
To do this, understanding the client’s current level of function and their prognosis will be the first step. Then the focus would shift to understanding the different skills needed to play the guitar, the client’s previous level of skill with the guitar, and the client’s expectations of their recovery. Why? Because all of this information will help the occupational therapist design a treatment plan that is appropriate for their client, and help them manage their client’s expectations where necessary.
This treatment plan might focus on using other activities to build the strength, dexterity, coordination, or control needed to play the guitar. Or it might focus on encouraging their client to play increasingly challenging melodies as appropriate. But the focus of, and the end goal of the intervention will always be to enable that client to perform an occupation which has immense value and meaning to them.
The skills developed during these activities are easily transferred to other occupations as well. And because the primary focus of treatment is something the client finds meaningful, their motivation to engage in therapy will also be higher. And you might even see the client’s motivation reflected in their adherence to other recommendations made by the occupational therapist, and in the outcomes of their therapy as a whole. So you can’t overstate the value of taking an occupational approach to any rehabilitative treatment.
Now on to a comparison of the medical model of treatment and the approach occupational therapists take to treatment. The medical model is very effective because it strictly focuses on identifying the problem and providing a solution to that problem. Some examples could be prescribing medication for a cold, or requesting surgery to remove a life-threatening tumour. Overall the medical model is calculating, methodical and efficient.
However, after an intervention based on the medical model is provided, the responsibility of care is often left solely to the client. After discharge, barring any follow-up appointments to observe the clients progress through the stages of recovery, there is usually no other support provided. And this is where occupational therapy intervention comes in; to address how the client might move forward to recover their previous level of functioning or adapt if a full recovery isn’t possible.
While the medical model might focus on identifying and solving a problem, occupational therapy focuses on identifying how that problem might influence and change the life of the client. It then works to provide the necessary support to ensure that the client can navigate the transition effectively. Occupational therapy is focused on ensuring that the appropriate education, environmental conditions, social support, training, and tools are provided to the client. Because the goal is to ensure they have the best quality of life possible, despite any setbacks caused by the problem they are facing.
A simple example here could be if someone is struggling with adherence to their medication. Once the medication has been prescribed, the duty of the doctor involved has been fulfilled. Still, a lack of compliance with the prescription could lead to future complications. An occupational therapist might approach this situation by engaging the client to identify the issues leading to their low rate of adherence and working with them to address those issues.
Suppose the issue is confusion on when and how to take the medication. In that case, the occupational therapist could engage the client in an activity that involves creating a colour coded medication calendar. The colours would signify when the client should take each medication, and the medication bottles would be labelled to match. This simple exercise could include an explanation of the use of each drug and the consequences of not taking them to motivate the client further to adhere to their regimen.
The point being made here is not that the occupational therapy approach is superior to the medical model, but that both methods have their distinct value. The medical model, and the occupation-based approach that occupational therapy takes, are both equally important in the process of healing, and neither should be overlooked in favour of the other.
Hopefully, this discussion has given you some new points of view to consider when it comes to the importance of occupational therapy. It is easy to overlook the value of a profession that can at times seem like common sense at work, but understanding the nuances, and the method behind the madness, makes all the difference.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and reflects the views of the writer alone. Do not take anything written in this post as a substitute for advice/information from a trained professional familiar with the specifics of your situation.
