What is occupational therapy? For people who are not quite familiar of the different fields of medicine, the question of “what is occupational therapy?” might sound like a strange one. The term occupational therapy might lead one to think that this field of medical study, care, and service is directly concerned with the well being of one’s job or employment, and possibly improving and developing one’s skills to be suitable for work. Actually, if you ask someone in the medical industry the question of “what is occupational therapy,” the answer might be quite long and a tiny bit complicated. But what is occupational therapy?
Occupational therapy is a field of medical study that deals with improving, developing, and strengthening a patient’s fine motor skills such as writing with a pen or pencil, cutting paper and other materials, using utensils, and other such activities skills. Children, too, whose main occupation is going to school and playing, occupational therapy will be directly concerned about the development of motor skills and functions that will come in handy in their social, physical, and academic development. What is occupational therapy might also yield the answer that it is a branch of medical care and services that promotes the health of a patient by enabling his or her body reach optimum performance in able to do meaningful and purposeful activities.
If you will ask the practitioners of the science what is occupational therapy, they will probably answer you that they work with patients that are suffering from mental, physical, developmental, and emotional conditions that disable them from functioning normally. These patients are treated by using creative and scientific treatments and procedures that will help them develop, recover, or maintain daily activities that are important to their lifestyle. The definition of what is occupational therapy is not only limited by developing the basic fine motor skills and functions of the patients—their reasoning abilities will also be enhanced, and the other functions of the body will also be enhanced in order to compensate for a permanent loss of function. What is occupational therapy can also be defined the ultimate goal of this branch of the medical sciences, which is to help the patients lead independent, satisfying, and highly productive lives. It is also in the job description of occupational therapists to become involved in helping their patients address the environmental, social, and political considerations that are involved in the exclusion and occupational deprivation of the patients.
The World Federation of Occupational Therapists will answer the question “what is occupational therapy” through this definition: “occupational therapy is as a profession concerned with promoting health and well being through engagement in occupation.” This means that the occupational therapists will use the specific and careful analysis of physical, psychosocial, mental, spiritual, environmental, cultural, and political factors that hinder occupation. What is occupational therapy as a field of study? It draws a lot from the concepts and disciplines of medicine, psychology, anthropology, and sociology in order to broaden the base of the field’s knowledge. In fact, a new discipline, called occupational science, is being developed during the last few years.