Therapies and allied health
Occupational therapist
Helps you keep doing everyday activities as your abilities change, and changes the task or the room when changing the body is not the answer.
An occupational therapist works on the practical business of daily life. Washing, dressing, eating, getting in and out of a chair, using a phone, moving safely around your own home. They look at the task, the equipment and the space around you rather than at the muscles alone, and they are usually the person who assesses what you need and helps you get it.
How you reach this person, and who pays, depends on where you live. Set your country in Location and Compass will show what applies there.
What they can help with
- Bathroom and toilet access, including shower chairs, rails and commodes
- Home changes, from a ramp or a widened doorway to where the bed goes
- Seating, positioning and pressure care, often alongside a physiotherapist
- Wheelchair assessment and the paperwork that goes with getting one funded
- Transfers, hoists and slings, and teaching whoever helps you how to use them
- Hand function, and tools that make writing, eating and using a phone easier
- Pacing and energy, so the things that matter to you are not the things you run out of energy for
- Getting in and out of a car, and driving assessments where that is relevant
When you might meet them
- Soon after diagnosis, before anything is urgent, so changes can be planned rather than rushed
- When something at home has started taking much longer or feels unsafe
- After a fall, or a near miss
- When you are thinking about a wheelchair, a hoist, or a bathroom change
- When a home modification is being considered, because most funding routes want their assessment first
- Again later, because needs change and most services will reassess
Things you could ask about
- What would you change first if this were your home?
- How long does equipment usually take to arrive here, and what can we start now?
- Is there anything worth trying before we buy it?
- What should we be planning for in six months, not just today?
- Who trains the people who help me to use this safely?
Not to be confused with
Not the same as a physiotherapist, though they overlap and often work together. A rough rule that holds in most services: the physiotherapist works on how you move, the occupational therapist works on what you are trying to do and what is around you.