What is Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapy (OT) is a branch of healthcare that helps people gain or regain independence in their everyday lives following injury, illness, or disability. Occupational therapists work with people who are born with or acquire physical, cognitive, or sensory deficits. These deficits or impairments in function can be caused by: cerebral palsy, torticollis, spina bifida, down syndrome, traumatic brain injury, stroke, carpal tunnel, and/or many more.
What do we do as Occupational Therapists?
As occupational therapists at Life Skills Village, we do pretty much anything and everything. We can work with children who have global developmental delay on fine motor skills needed for school and adults who are recovering from stroke on strengthening their affected side so they can perform self-dressing. We can also work on:
- Home management
- Community reintegration
- Home modifications
- Financial management
- Drivers retraining
- Feeding/oral motor skills
Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy, what’s the difference?
Since both professions are in the healthcare realm, a lot of people get OT confused with physical therapy (PT). While there are similarities, and occupational and physical therapists tend to work closely together, they do differ!
The biggest difference between the two professions is that PT focuses on improving a person’s ability to move their body while OT focuses on how to perform daily functions with improved movement!
Where can you find Occupational Therapists?
Because of the broad scope of occupational therapy, we can work in many different settings. Some common ones where you’ll us are:
- Schools
- Hospitals
- Outpatient clinics
- In the home
- In the community