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Occupational Therapy Month

April is Occupational Therapy Month and we want to do our part to educate people about OT month and what they do for the community.

Occupational therapy helps people of all ages by promoting healthy life style habits and preventing, or living better with, injury, illness, or disability. It is a profession deeply rooted in science and is evidence-based, meaning that the plan custom designed for each individual is supported by available data, clinical experience, and “best practices” that have been developed and proven over time. Occupational therapy focuses on whatever is meaningful to the individual, relative to their activities or occupations. Occupational therapy’s purpose is to take the individual beyond problems to find practical solutions that support everyday living, ranging from adaptations for how to do a task, to changes to a person’s surroundings, to helping individuals alter their own behaviors. Through therapeutic approaches, occupational therapy helps individuals design their lives, develop needed skills, adjust their environments (home, school or work), and build health promoting habits and routines that will allow them to thrive and live life to its fullest.

Because the focus of occupational therapy is on the individual, their environments, and what they do, the profession’s services can be provided in many different settings.
Occupational therapy uses everyday activities as the means to enable people to stay well or get beyond disability, illness, or limitations.

By taking the full picture into account a person’s psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup as well as their environment occupational therapy helps people to:

• Achieve their goals
• Function at the highest possible level
• Concentrate on what matters most to them
• Maintain or rebuild their independence
• Participate in the everyday activities that they need or want to do or to make life worth living.

For more information on occupational therapy visit the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc AOTA