Healthy Living

Occupational Therapy helps people of all ages to live life to its fullest. It promotes health and helps people prevent — or live better with — injury, illness, or disability. It is a practice deeply rooted in science and evidence-based, which means that the plan designed for each person is supported by data, experience, and the most proven treatments that have been developed over time.

April is National Occupational Therapist Month. Occupational Therapists and occupational therapy assistants focus on doing whatever occupations or activities are meaningful to the individual. It is occupational therapy’s mission to tackle physical obstacles that prevent a person from living life to its fullest. Solutions to these obstacles may be adaptations for how to do a task of daily living, changes to the person’s surroundings, or helping individuals to alter their own behaviors and expectations.

When working with an occupational therapist practitioner, strategies and modifications are customized for each individual to resolve problems, improve function, and support everyday living activities.

The goal is to maximize a person’s physical potential and instill self confidence and independence. Through these therapeutic approaches, occupational therapy helps individuals design their lives, develop needed skills, adjust their environments (for example home, school, or work) and build health-promoting habits and routines that will allow then to thrive and be successful in all environments.

By taking the full picture into account — peoples’ psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup, as well as their environment — occupational therapy assists clients to:

• Achieve personal goals
• Function at the highest possible level in their environments
• Concentrate on what matters most to them
• Maintain or rebuild their independence
• Participate in daily activities.

Occupational therapists are dedicated healthcare professionals who aren’t always in the spotlight. But Occupational Therapy Month is a time for them to shine.

Kim Tattersall is an occupational therapist with Backus Rehabilitation Services. This column should not replace advice or instruction from your personal physician. If you want to comment on this column or others, visit the Healthy Living blog at www.backushospital.org/backus-blogs or e-mail Ms. Tattersall or any of the Healthy Living columnists at healthyliving@wwbh.org