Is Occupational Therapy Right For You?

Occupational therapy (OT) helps millions of American children and adults normalize life after a serious illness, accident, or surgery. OT also provides continuing rehabilitation for chronic health problems, such as MS or limb loss. Could OT be right for you? To find out, let’s look at some of its applications.

WHAT IS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY?

Occupational therapy is a customized set of interventions, movements, and self-care skills which foster independence after illness, injury, surgery, or hospitalization. OT works through any condition that hampers activities of daily living, such as dressing, eating, walking, bathing, engaging in hobbies, and working or going to school.

As part of a larger plan of medical and psychosocial rehabilitation, occupational therapy through your hospital retrains essential movements, improves memory and cognition, and helps you manage your day-to-day living. An occupational therapist identifies tasks and skills which have been impacted by your overall health and shows you innovative ways to accomplish them.

When you come to the occupational therapy department at Wooster Community Hospital, a highly trained therapist will evaluate you. They will do some basic testing and discuss your treatment goals. As you move through your plan, you can adjust your goals as needed, discarding some and making new ones, so you can see real progress.

WHY IS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY HELPFUL?

Occupational therapy is one of the most innovative and adaptable parts of physical medicine and rehabilitation. It does not concentrate on treating your injury, illness, or ongoing condition. Instead, it creates the strategies to help you live well within your limitations and improves upon your strengths.

Here are just some of the ways occupational therapy helps our patients at Wooster Community Hospital:

• Learning to use assistive devices, such as splints, walkers, wheelchairs, canes, commodes, crutches, transfer seats, and grab bars
• Balance, vision, and hearing retraining after a stroke
• Increasing fine motor skills, such as writing, buttoning, and grasping
• Improving memory and cognition
• Relearning how to dress and eat
• Wound care (surgical, traumatic and diabetic)
• Assisting with home modification plans (such as wheelchair ramps)
• Educational adaptations for children with ADHD, autism, and other developmental/learning disabilities
• Splint fabrication to speed healing and prevent/correct deformity
• Modification of assistive devices
• Pain management and exercises for hand and upper extremity injuries
• Massage, exercise, and wrapping to reduce lymphedema (swelling) in the extremities
• Dealing with the side effects of cancer treatment
• Post-concussion and traumatic brain injury care
• Rehabilitation, strength, and endurance training after a sports injury

IS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY RIGHT FOR ME?

Your primary care physician and other providers familiar with your health and goals for rehabilitation can refer you for occupational therapy services. Your in-house evaluation at Wooster Community Hospital will determine if OT is your best option.

THE OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY TEAM AT WOOSTER COMMUNITY HOSPITAL

Our facility at Wooster Community Hospital is called HealthPoint. Through it, we provide caring, compassionate, and effective occupational therapy services to guide you toward optimal health, wellness, and function within your home and community. Contact us at (330) 202-3300 for more information or to arrange your personalized evaluation.