Occupational therapy seeks to implement occupations to care for and improve people's health.
Occupational therapy is a discipline that aims to implement occupations for the treatment of men's health . The occupational therapist works for biopsychosocial well-being, assisting the individual to achieve an active attitude regarding their abilities and to modify their diminished abilities.
In other words, occupational therapy seeks to enable a person with physical or mental limitations to lead an independent life and value their own potential. Occupational therapy can help in the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries, Parkinson 's disease, cerebral palsy , general weakness, and post-fracture rehabilitation.
Objectives of occupational therapy
Specifically, among the areas in which the aforementioned occupational therapy operates are also the socially marginalized, geriatrics, intellectual disabilities, mental health, drug addiction or community intervention. This discipline uses various activities to help the subject adapt effectively to their physical and social environment.
It should be noted that occupation should not be understood as work or employment , but as all the tasks in which the patient is involved. These occupations vary with age: in occupational therapy for children, the relevant occupations will be playing and learning, for example.
In this way, occupational therapy is responsible for prevention , functional diagnosis, research and treatment of daily occupations in different areas, such as personal care (food, hygiene), recreation (games and activities). recreational activities) and productivity (school or work activities).
Occupational therapy contributes to the treatment of various problems.
The work of professionals
The occupational therapist is the one in charge of bringing to fruition and developing the techniques, tools and actions that shape this type of therapy . A professional who has his origins in the 18th century , specifically in the year 1793 , is when the figure of a therapist of this modality was established for the first time and that is none other than the French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel , who at that time carried out a work which represented a true revolution in society.
And this doctor, a specialist in mental illness, opted to break with the rules imposed until that moment. Thus, he abandoned the idea that patients with these pathologies should be chained or that they should be bled and opted to work with them through a more moral treatment, with therapeutic objectives.
Training of the occupational therapy expert
It can be highlighted that the occupational therapist must comply with three stages in their training: a medical phase (related to basic medical sciences), the study of therapeutic activities for rehabilitation treatments and clinical practice .
This training will be achieved by the individual through the various university degrees that can currently be found as part of the educational plans of many countries throughout the world.
In this way, after several courses and subjects, the occupational therapist will be perfectly trained to work with their patients based on their pathologies. Thus, taking them into account, you will be able to implement treatments based on, for example, psychomotor re-education techniques.