New direction for this blog! The first few posts will be mainly OT-educational, for those readers who may not know what OT is, or what OT's do. Those of you who know all the things about OT can skip these first few weeks, or follow along for kicks and giggles, and the satisfaction of reading stuff that you already know!
First, I will be covering the "areas of occupation", as delineated by the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework, 3rd ed. (American Occupational Therapy Association, 2014). Yes, "occupation" refers to your job/profession, but it also means So. Much. More. As occupational therapists, we use the term "occupation" to refer to any activity or task that occupies a person's time. Think about that for a minute.
If you became overwhelmed just thinking about that, then you're on the right track!
And, fear not, because OT has your back when it comes to the vast territory of occupations!
OT has them all nicely grouped into categories (called "areas") of occupation.
And that is what I will be covering in the coming weeks.
We'll start off with the building blocks: Activities of Daily Living. We refer to them as ADL's, because, of course, everything's cooler when it has an abbreviation. Now, I want you to visualize your morning routine. For me, it takes a good 10 minutes to get out of bed because the will is weak in the morning. But once up, I use the bathroom, brush my teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, make coffee, and stumble out the door. Or some variation of that. If I'm feeling particularly daring, I might eat breakfast before getting dressed, or even, *gasp* go without coffee.
But that's beside the point.
All of you probably have some similar variation of morning behaviors. And it's a pretty simple deal, right?
Those are your ADL's. Self-care, like brushing your teeth, showering, brushing your hair, etc. Dressing, as in buttoning a shirt, putting on socks, that sort of thing. For the sake of being concise, I'll abridge. Eating = ADL! Getting around your house or apartment = ADL! Sex = ADL!
ADL's are the building blocks of our lives. They are necessary to survive and thrive in this world.
Pretty simple, right? Many of these things we may do without thinking about them. They become part of our routine, and that's about it. These activities are nothing special, they just are.
Now, I want you to imagine that you've experienced a stroke, and one whole side of your body is affected. That arm, leg, trunk, and side of your face isn't working.
Now, think about brushing your teeth. How would that task change, if you lost functioning in half of your body?
Fairly drastically, I would imagine. At first, you'd probably need to sit in a chair at the sink, rather than stand. With support, because your trunk control may not be very good. You'd have to figure out a way to unscrew the toothpaste and apply it to the toothbrush with one hand. What about the faucet? Are you able to reach from a seated position to turn the water on? What about getting to and from the sink? What if you lived alone and had no one to help you?
It's not quite so simple now, is it?
It's incredibly easy to take ADL's for granted, until something happens and you're forced to completely change the way you perform these activities. And that's where OT's come in! We're there to collaborate with our clients to creatively problem-solve and find new ways of performing ADL's. We're there to help them regain the strength and skills to return to their original ADL routine. We're there to educate them on use of adaptive equipment like shower benches, and transfer boards for toileting. Aaaaand, I could go on and on. But you get the idea.
So, to wrap-up, I hope this gives you a bit of a new perspective. If you have a slightly greater appreciation for your morning routine after reading this, then I will be quite happy. I also hope this wasn't completely dull and yawn-worthy. But ADL's are pretty cool, so I'm guessing not. Tune in next week for coverage of another thrilling, exhilarating area of occupation! Thanks for reading!
Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (3rd Edition). American Journal of Occupational Therapy 2014;68(Supplement_1):S1-S48. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2014.682006.
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