What do occupational therapists add to pain management/rehabilitation?

Coming from a small profession that has side-stepped (more or less) a conventional biomedical model, I’ve found my inclusion in pain management and rehabilitation is not always easily understood by other clinicians. It doesn’t help that occupational therapists practice in very diverse settings, and what we do may look superficially like handing out raised toilet seats, playing with kids, doing work-site assessments or hand therapy! Today I hope to remedy this a bit, and extend a challenge to clinicians from other professions to sum up what your profession adds in 25 words or less (the first sentence in this definition below is fewer than 25 just sayin’). “Occupational therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well being through occupation. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement. (WFOT 2012)“ In occupational therapy, occupations refer to the everyday activities that people do as individuals, in families and with communities to occupy time and bring meaning and purpose to life. Occupations include things people need to, want to and are expected to do....
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Interdisciplinary teams Occupational therapy Professional topics Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs