What is OT?

Occupational Therapy (OT) is a profession that is in the healthcare field that helps people to get back to do their daily occupations and activities that they need to do, want to do, and have to do. Occupational therapists have a whole process that they use to determine what goals or things that they need to work on with their clients. 

Let me walk you through the OT process according to the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA, 2020):

1. Evaluation

   1. An evaluation is going to consist of the OT making something called an “occupational profile” this is basically just an interview about the client’s life and their needs and wants. There also assessments that are done depending on the needs of the client. For example, if a child is having difficulties with drawing shapes or eye-hand coordination the OT could administer the BOT-2 or the PDMS-3 to determine where the deficits are. For adults, if a patient has difficulty with raising their shoulder up and with toileting by themselves the OT could administer Range of Motion Testing and Barthel’s Index of Activities of Daily Living. The scores from the assessments will help to determine if the client needs OT services, the amount of services that they will receive, and what the goals are for intervention to meet the goals. 

2. Interventions

   1. Interventions are the things that an OT does to work on the goals and the things that they want to improve on. These can look very different in all settings, but the main thing that brings all of it together is that it is focused on increasing the quality of an individual’s occupations. For example, in a school setting, an OT could be working on sitting still in the classroom and they could add a “wiggleband” on the bottom of the chair for them to bounce their feet on to maintain attention. For adults in an inpatient hospital setting, an OT is going to teach a client how to put their socks on while following precautions from the medical procedure that they just had. 

3. Outcomes

   1. Outcomes are what happens after you have received intervention from an OT for the length of your treatment (ex.15 sessions, 1 year, a school year etc.). The OT will look at the completed goals of the client and will most likely do more assessments and a re-evaluation to determine progress. If you have not made enough progress within the treatment time, then the OT will ask the payer source for more sessions or for longer time with the client. 

OT is a service that can be paid for by insurances of all types (ex. State funded, federal funded, private pay, etc.), but for the most part there has to be a referral from a doctor for payer sources to pay for the services. Depending on insurance that will determine how long and how frequently you can receive services within the year. 

If you believe that you/your child have an area of need that could be addressed through OT, please reach out to your doctor and discuss your concerns and options for treatment. OT is a great profession that can increase independence across all parts of the lifespan!

References

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (4th ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(Suppl. 2), 7412410010. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74S2001