Emily, MS OTR/L, Problem Solver Extraordinaire
What is occupational therapy? What’s the role of an occupational therapist? Per Wikipedia, OT “involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or occupations, of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of OT consists of health care practitioners trained and educated to improve mental and physical performance.” What I’m hearing is: OT is where we problem solve how to “develop, recover or maintain” those occupations; we OTs are indeed the problem solvers.
Take, for instance, a patient who is status post total hip replacement with posterior precautions. That means no bending the hip past 90 degrees, no crossing your legs, and no going pigeon toed. Well, now this person needs to wear pants, shoes, and socks. They need to transfer on and off a toilet, potentially one that is lower than 90 degrees, they need to wipe themselves. They need to get in and out of bed. They need to get in and out of a car. They need to climb stairs. The list goes on and on with things you wouldn’t even think about.
While I as the OT can’t take credit for everything (the PTs would kill me), it is up to occupational therapy to teach the patients how their precautions truly dictate almost everything they do functionally. While physical therapy provides this education as it relates fundamentally to gait, transfers and mobility, occupational therapy provides the education for the purpose of ADLs and IADLs — which, believe it or not, mobility and transfers are part and parcel of — we teach how to observe precautions, and we teach tricks to observe those precautions while still being independent. We use sock aids, reachers, grab bars, plastic bags, and seat risers. We use items designed for their exact purpose, and we turn ordinary, everyday objects into things you would never imagine. An OT brain can look at something like a piece of plastic or a utensil and come up with anywhere from two to ten different ways to adapt the object for maximum use! It’s just what we do.
How does one turn on their OT brain and take it to the next level of functional problem solving—either in your home or professionally? I like to relate this to the fictional character Amelia Bedelia! Remember her? She took all directions literally (in retrospect, perhaps she was on the spectrum, and for a lot of us, maybe she was our first introduction to ASD). While you don’t always need to see things so concretely, it is helpful to try and see things for what they could be rather than seeing things for what other people tell you they are. Truly, this is good advice for all areas of our lives: don’t be so beholden to what you think things are supposed to look/feel/be like. Be creative! See and think outside the box! Don’t limit yourself. There are no limits when it comes to what occupational therapy (and occupational therapists) can do!