ABCs of OT, 2023
Happy April, friends! Or as we in the biz like to say: Happy Occupational Therapy Month! As per usual, I will be participating in the annual #ABCsofOT Instagram challenge, led by my amazing friend, Shannen (@shannenmarie_ot on Instagram). This is my third year participating (!!), and in the interest of keeping my posts fresh and giving myself a personal challenge, I’ve decided to keep this year’s posts to a theme: Occupational Therapy Interventions. This will allow me to provide more education to the general public (or anyone who finds my IG!) in addition to giving some possible suggestions to new grads or any practitioner who is struggling with burnout and ideas. That is my hope, anyway!
What is an occupational therapy intervention, you may be wondering? From AOTA.org, interventions are “designed to facilitate client’s engagement in occupations and improve health and wellbeing.” There are three parts to the intervention process: the intervention plan, the implementation of the intervention, and the review of the intervention. There are six types of occupational therapy interventions, too: occupations and activities; interventions that support occupations; education and training; advocacy; groups; and virtual. Use of these different interventions is based on a myriad of factors, including but not limited to the practice setting, the patient’s needs and interests, and the patient’s medical diagnosis.
It’s my plan to touch on each and every one of these types of interventions throughout the month. Goodness knows that I have enough letters to work with! I also plan on featuring the different settings in which these interventions are most common, in addition to any other settings in which they could work. Something that works in pediatrics could also work for a neuro patient, and something that works for an ortho outpatient could also work for an LTACH patient. You just never know! It’s all in how we plan and prepare the intervention and how we approach it in the context of our OT framework.
Today’s letter was C, and if you’re coming from my Instagram post, you know that C stands for Cutting! You can read all about why that is important in the caption of that post.
So, happy beginning of April! Here’s to warmer weather (knock on wood), flowers in bloom, and a renewed passion for occupational therapy interventions!