Fields of application
Occupational therapy is successfully used in various fields of medicine both for treatment and prevention.
- Neurology: Stroke patients in particular often benefit from occupational therapy. A stroke is often accompanied by a loss of motor function on one side of the body.
With a good ergotherapy started early on, many functions can often be restored. In the ideal case, patients can at least learn to eat and drink, wash and care for themselves again. Coarse and fine motor skills can be trained; if certain functions have permanently failed, one can concentrate on learning certain replacement functions.
Neuropsychological limitations (loss of attention, concentration and performance) can also be alleviated by occupational therapy. Other neurological clinical pictures for which occupational therapy can be useful are multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease, paraplegia, craniocerebral injuries and amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
- Orthopedics: In orthopedics (and also in rheumatology and traumatology), occupational therapy is used to correct or improve disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Here, the areas partly overlap with neurology (for example, in the case of paraplegia).
In addition, amputations, bone fractures and rheumatic complaints can also be treated with occupational therapy. Also in this special field, the focus is again on the suitability for everyday use. For this purpose, certain movement sequences are trained and, if necessary, compensation mechanisms are learned or certain aids are used.
Especially in orthopedics, occupational therapy works hand in hand with physiotherapy, which also aims to (re)create the greatest possible range of motion.
- Pediatrics: In principle, occupational therapy can be used in all children and adolescents whose developmental stage is not age-appropriate for some reason. The cause for this can be various brain-organic damages, but also psychological diseases, (sensory) handicaps or a delayed sensomotoric development. They all can be reasons for occupational therapy.In paediatrics, occupational therapy also plays a major role in prevention.
In children, for example, attention and performance can be trained or fine motor skills can be promoted. This can make everyday school life much easier for children with ADHD, for example, as they are able to concentrate much better.
- Psychiatry: In psychiatry, occupational therapy in general terms usually aims to help patients “find their way back to themselves”. This includes, on the one hand, that skills lost due to a psychological process can or must be learned again and, on the other hand, that certain perceptions and ways of thinking can be trained.
Thus, for example, occupational therapy can help people with some addictions, behavioral, personality, anxiety and eating disorders, depression or even schizophrenia to perceive their environment and their own body correctly again. In addition to basic functions such as motivation and drive, emotional stability and a better ability to cope with stress and a certain self-confidence can often be regained, which enables patients to find their way around in everyday life on their own again.
- Geriatrics: Geriatrics actually covers several medical specialties, since older people often suffer from many different diseases (multimorbidity) from all areas. Therefore, occupational therapy in geriatrics is primarily aimed at stabilizing mental and also physical abilities and maintaining them as long as possible. Especially the preservation of cognitive processes is of special interest, as this guarantees a long lasting independence. Prophylactic occupational therapy is also useful in geriatrics, as it can prevent or at least delay early dependence on other people and certain “complications of the elderly”, such as an increased risk of falling.
