There are people who are deprived from a normal life due to physical debility. They cannot follow an occupational life like other people. However there are ways to provide them with usual occupations of life and include them in the mainstream. Occupational therapy is the process that helps such people to find occupational engagements as per their potential and thus able to lead a balanced and meaningful life.
Those engaged in occupational therapy mainly deal with handicapped people to develop their skill and potential to that level where it becomes possible for these disabled persons to pursue a vocation and lead a healthy life. Occupational therapy includes such activities as a systematized program of treatment for disabled people to improve their health and ability for pursuing normal life activities, assessments of skills and potentials for jobs and helping them to adapt to such jobs, training the disabled in the use of support equipments needed by them and creating awareness among family members about the support and care to be provided by them to the disabled member. Occupational therapy also plays a major role in the treatment of such epidemics as AIDS, TB, Polio, etc.
Occupational therapy had its beginning in USA in the early part of twentieth century with the establishment of The American Occupational Therapy Association which at that time was known as Society for the Promotion of Occupational Therapy. The idea was derived from the widespread mental treatment institutions that used to be funded by the US government at that time and started initially as a moral treatment process. However occupational therapy gradually became directed towards curative rehabilitation of disabled people for them to be employed and lead a normal life.
Occupational therapy came to limelight after the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, 1975 was legislated in USA. The focus was the children who due to physical debility could not attend a conventional school and were in need of related occupational therapy. After this act, state sponsored schools in USA started to recruit a large number of occupational therapists for helping disabled children to take part in usual school education. Initially therapists used to be registered by American Occupational Therapy Association after they had undergone training from approved institutions. The degrees offered in occupational therapy gradually evolved from Bachelor’s degree to doctorate from the early nineties indicating the growing demand and place of importance of the personnel engaged in occupational therapy in USA. In USA National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy is the competent authority to grant national certificate. All occupational therapy programs have to be accredited under the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education.
Occupational therapy has evolved from the central concepts that occupation is a basic and therapeutic need of man affecting human life, health and overall well-being both from social and cultural perspectives. The choice of occupation should also be purely individual as per the philosophy of occupational therapy. Starting as activities for diverting the ill people’s minds from their illness, occupational therapy has graduated into the activities for direct healing of the affected person and rehabilitation in normal social life through an appropriate occupation.
The physical, psychological, emotional and other costs suffered by the affected person leading to physical or mental deficiencies are primarily assessed in occupational therapy and after such diagnosis, remedial measures through occupation meaningful for an individual are determined. Thus a wide range of people like those suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, alcoholism, neurological disorders, etc. get a chance to get back their places in life.
