Tim Stafford, age 15, of Grand Forks, N.D., for his question:
JUST WHAT IS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY?
Occupational therapy is the paramedical treatment involving planned activity administered by an occupational therapist under the direction of a doctor. Its purpose is to promote the recovery of persons stricken with mental illness or physical disability, sometimes following accidents.
Originally regarded as a way of filling the time of convalescent patients, occupational therapy has not become a program of work specifically selected for its physical, mental and vocational value.
The therapist's work is based on the physician's statement of the patient's diagnosis, prognosis, personality and physical and emotional limitations, as well as the objectives sought.
Often the therapist engages in a form of vocational rehabilitation in choosing activities that will teach new basic skills of daily living to those who never acquired them, or who have lost them, as in the case of amputees or those otherwise recently crippled.
Additionally, in dealing with patients who have never been employed, or who have held jobs requiring no skills, or who must change their type of work because of their acquired disability, the therapist may also engage in prevocational testing and guidance.
The trained therapist is versed in such activities as gardening, weaving, hand industries, music, various types of recreation and education, creative handicrafts such as clay modeling and leather tooling and manual arts.
After determining the patient's willingness to involve himself or herself in a given field, the therapist will employ one or more of these activities to create the desired result in a variety of ways.
Whether dealing with the physically or emotionally ill, the chronic patient, normal adults, the aged or children, the therapist works in two areas: the functional and the psychiatric.
Functional therapy operates within the limits of the patient's physical tolerance to develop or reestablish nervous and muscular coordination, to extend the motion of joints and to strengthen muscles.
Functional therapy is especially important for those who have lost the use of a limb through amputation and must be taught to use artificial members. It is also important for those who have suffered attacks of arthritis, cerebral palsy, poliomyelitis or neurological disabilities.
The services of a psychologist or a psychiatrist are of value to the ill or disabled patient whose attitude is one of depression that leads the patient to regard himself or herself as useless. Such therapy, in providing mental stimulus and physical exercise, can do much to restore a normal outlook and prepare the way for retraining in a skill within the patient's limited capacity.
The psychiatrist is called upon to deal with cases of more severe depression where a patient's outlook cannot be improved by routine psychological therapy.