Physical Health Services

Chronic conditions include heart disease, stroke, cancer, arthritis, diabetes and obesity.

Approximately 75% of health care dollars in the United States go toward treating chronic diseases per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How Occupational Therapy Can Help

Occupational therapists are skilled in prevention, lifestyle modifications, and physical and psychosocial rehabilitation. They focus on enabling individuals to participate in productive and meaningful activities of daily life which is particularly relevant to those who need to manage a chronic disease.

Depending upon the specific condition, occupational therapy goals for individuals with chronic health conditions include the following:

• Addressing performance deficits in the activities of daily living and home management tasks to sustain or improve the current status in these areas.
• Teaching strategies to incorporate activity modification techniques into daily activities to cope with physical demands and reduce fatigue.
• Specific adaptations to help the individual continue to perform critical health management tasks.
• Teaching and incorporating health management tasks into existing habits so they become part of the daily routine to ensure those tasks are completed.
• Developing coping strategies, behaviors, habits, routines, and lifestyle adaptations to support physical and psychosocial health and well-being.

Occupational therapists understand the emotional challenges associated with living with a chronic condition. These emotions include anger and depression, feelings of uncertainty about the future, and changes in relationships with family and friends. Occupational therapists recognize that well-being is more than controlling symptoms or managing daily tasks.

As a result, treatments focus on what is meaningful to each individual. Engaging patients and caregivers to take charge of their own care and to sustain important the responsibilities and relationships is an essential part of occupational therapy. This approach allows each individual control over the effects and progression of their condition to the best extent possible.

Cognition refers to information-processing functions, including attention, memory and executive functions such as planning, problem solving, self-monitoring and self-awareness.

Functional cognition is the interaction of cognitive skills and self-care, and community living skills. It refers to the thinking and processing skills needed to accomplish complex everyday activities such as household and financial management, medication management, volunteer activities, driving and work.

Occupational therapists focus their interventions on the relationship between the individual’s cognitive skills, functional performance and the environment to enhance the daily life of patients.

Impairments in functional cognition are common and can result from multiple causes, including:

• Human genetics and/or development (e.g., environmental deprivation, fetal alcohol syndrome, learning disabilities and pervasive development disorders).
• Neurologic disease, injuries, and disorders (e.g., stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, dementias, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and lupus).
• Mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, substance use disorders).
• Transient or continuing life stresses or changes (e.g., anxiety disorders, stress-related disorders, pain syndromes, grief and loss).

How Occupational Therapy Can Help

Occupational therapists are experts at addressing the effects of cognitive deficits on daily life. Using a person-centered perspective, they work with the individual, family and others involved in their lives to set collaborative goals and interventions. These usually begin with basic activities of daily living such as dressing, bathing and grooming and will progress to more difficult tasks such as preparing meals and completing other daily activities, driving or returning to work, enabling that person to enhance their quality of life.

Occupational therapists have an important role in treating people with joint and musculoskeletal disorders.

These disorders often result in problems with performance of activities of daily living for which occupational therapists have the training and knowledge to effectively treat.

The following are examples of joint-musculoskeletal disorders:

• Hip and knee replacements.
• Shoulder and rotator cuff issues.
• Arthritis and rheumatic diseases.
• Fractures.
• Dislocations and subluxations.
• Ligament injury and instability.
• Muscle strains, tears and avulsions.
• Tendon injuries and conditions.
• Nerve injuries and conditions.
• Wounds and scars.

How Occupational Therapy Can Help

As a holistic, evidence-based profession, occupational therapy’s approach to the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders goes beyond treatment of an isolated area to include the whole person and his or her functional needs and roles in their daily environment.

Occupational therapy interventions are designed to meet the needs of that individual and may include the following as part of a comprehensive plan of care:

• Therapeutic activities and exercise.
• Pain management.
• Joint protection and energy modification for daily activities.
• Scar management.
• Sensory re-education.
• Orthotic design, fabrication, fitting and training.
• Work conditioning.
• Training in activities of daily living and adaptive or assistive devices.