Occupational Therapy

OT is about function, and helping our clients do the things that they want to do. Our OT’s will work with our clients to achieve this is a number of ways. We work closely with our colleagues, and are influenced by the principles of psychology, physiotherapy and cognitive rehabilitation. By taking a holistic approach, we hope to help clients re-establish their new self following a brain injury.

We use assessment to look at the strengths and weakness of the individuals skills, particularly in thinking (cognitive) and physical (motor sensory) skills. Remember, these will probably be different from before the brain injury, and every individual we see will have a different set of strengths and weakness. Some of our assessments are formal tests, others may be observations of our client at home or in the community.

We also work together with our clients to make realistic and achievable goals around the things that are important to them. For some this is returning to work, for others this may be getting washed and dressed independently, or regaining the confidence and skills to shop in the supermarket.

Once a client has goals, we approach rehabilitation in 2 ways, through re-learning skills, and through learning compensatory strategies that will help overcome any difficulties the person may be left with. We work closely with our rehabilitation coaches, who carry out alot of the work in the community. There are countless ways to do this, and that is the joy of Occupational Therapy, we can work in a truly client centre manner to tailor our rehabilitation service to the clients needs.