What is Occupational Therapy?

Do old injuries affect your daily life? Do you even find it hard to perform routine activities? Well, if you have suffered from injuries in the past or have balance disorders, you might need to consult a doctor for occupational therapy. An injury can affect your mental and physical health that lasts longer than the healing period. But returning to the daily routine is essential for all, and this is when you need an occupational therapist to heal you from within and restore your everyday life.

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational therapy is a type of health care service provided by occupational therapists in the form of therapeutic exercises based on your everyday activities or as per your occupation to help you recover the normal body functions from any injuries, ailments, or impairments that affect your self-esteem.

This therapy is a treatment that people of all ages can use. Occupational therapists provide therapies for functionally impaired children, injured soldiers, or people presenting with symptoms associated with muscle pain affecting the normal functioning of the muscles and the joints. Occupational therapy provides the best therapy that will help in improving the psychological and social wellbeing of an individual. Overall it helps in maintaining physical as well as mental health.

Occupational Therapy in Children

Occupational therapy in children is quite effective. It helps you improve the quality of life of the children suffering from disorders affecting balance and gait, lacking coordination skills, and psychological status. A few of the common disorders that can be treated with the help of this therapy are as follows:

• Cerebral Palsy

  Occupational therapy helps children with cerebral palsy improve muscle and joint coordination. Lack of muscle and joint coordination makes it difficult for the growing children to perform daily activities and tasks like eating, brushing, bathing, and other fine motor skills.

• Autism

  Autistic children lack communication skills and show restricted or repetitive behavioural patterns and a lack of social interactions. Occupational therapy helps such patients self-regulate their emotions and enable them to actively participate socially. It helps autistic patients overcome their limitations.

• Down Syndrome

  Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder. Children suffering from down syndrome present with symptoms like learning disability, poor physical activity, and at the same time may lack self-care skills. Occupational therapy is where you can rely on. It helps patients develop self-care skills like brushing, bathing, and eating to achieve independence and good quality of life. The fun activities in this therapy help patients to improve fine motor and gross motor skills. It also helps in improving grip and the skills required to carry objects, improve mental and grasping power. 

• Asperger’s Syndrome

  Asperger’s syndrome is a type of autism, and those suffering from it lack social interaction skills, both verbal and nonverbal. Those suffering from this syndrome find it difficult to build rapport with the peer group and have anxiety issues. Occupational therapists are skilled at their work in dealing with children suffering from Asperger’s syndrome. They provide individual consultative therapy that aims at improving everyday life functions and helps them perform each of them as smoothly as possible. 

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

  Occupational therapy is effective in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It helps improve the physical coordination skills and organizational skills, helps them perform basic life skills like eating, brushing, bathing, and helps them manage school strategies.

Occupational Therapy in Adults

Just like occupational therapy is effective in children, it is equally effective in adults. It aims to analyze what is best for an individual’s physical, mental, emotional, and psychological health. The therapy includes exercises that support all the functions that are needed to achieve all these with the help of an occupational therapist. The key benefits of this therapy for an adult or elderly person are:

• It helps in keeping away arthritis and the muscle and the joint impairment resulting due to arthritis.
• It reduces joint inflammation and relieves the stiffness of the muscles.
• Boost the memory and develop cognitive skills by retaining and sharpening the memory with brain-teasing exercises.
• Helps in managing chronic pain as a result of trauma, accident, injury, nerve injury, or damage.
• Helpful in improving vision in those patients complaining of double vision, strabismus, dizziness.
• Helps in improving the range of motion with the help of exercises that decrease pain and stiffness of the affected muscles and the joints.
• Apart from these, Occupational therapy for adults is also held in managing amputations, burn injuries, Dupuytren’s disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, Alzheimer’s, dementia, anxiety, depression, and brain injuries.

Conclusion

Occupational therapy is considered a practical approach in achieving physical, mental, social, psychological, and environmental needs. Occupational therapy, Lincolnton, NC, will help you achieve your fitness needs through a conservative approach.