What is occupational therapy?

What Does occupational therapy Mean

The occupational therapy is a discipline that aims occupations instrumentation for the treatment of health of the man. The occupational therapist works for biopsychosocial well-being, assisting the individual to achieve an active attitude regarding their abilities and to be able to modify their diminished abilities.

In other words, occupational therapy seeks that a person with physical or mental limitations can have an independent life and value their own potential. Occupational therapy can aid in the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy , general weakness, and in post-fracture rehabilitation.

Specifically, among the areas in which the aforementioned occupational therapy operates are also the socially marginalized, geriatrics, intellectual disability, mental health, drug dependence or community intervention.
This discipline appeals to various activities to help the subject to 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 engaged. 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 playful) and productivity (school or work activities).
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 that has its origins in the 18th century. Specifically in the year 1793 is when the figure of a therapist of this modality is established for the first time and that is none other than the French psychiatrist Philippe Pinel, who at that time carried out a work that represented a real revolution in society.
And it is that said doctor, a specialist in mental illnesses, opted to break with the rules imposed up to 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.
Finally, it can be highlighted that the occupational therapist must comply with three stages in his training: a medical phase (related to basic medical sciences), the study of therapeutic activities for rehabilitation treatments and clinical practice .

A training that will be achieved by him through the various university degrees that can currently be found as part of the educational plans of many countries throughout the geography of the world.
In this way, after several courses and subjects, the occupational therapist will be perfectly qualified to work with his patients based on their pathologies. Thus, taking them into account, you will be able to start supported treatments, for example, in re-education techniques in psychomotor skills.

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