(Institution Name)
Introduction:
Occupational therapy is for mentally, physically or cognitively disordered people whose daily living is assessed in order to improve their lifestyles and ease of living. Chronic pains are responsible for the derailment of several individuals and families because the affected person becomes disabled to carry out his or her own tasks and hence the dependability wastes time and money of the caregivers. The real problem in the case of chronic pains is that the affected people lose control over their activities but through occupational therapy, this control can be increased or even restored (AOTA, 2016). However, occupational therapy can only help the patient get accustomed to and adjust with the pain in everyday life and cannot cure the pain completely. Occupational therapy for pain rehabilitation has certain aspects. However, the cure for arthritis cannot be sought in occupational therapy.
Discussion:
What occupational therapy can possibly do for pain management and rehabilitation is to help people get accustomed to their life after they have gone through an accident that has left them injured and hurt, helping them lead relatively normal lives or just try to return to their former lifestyle with a minimum of pain. The pain might also be emotional and largely psychological after they have gone through a traumatic event. Hence occupational therapy would only help them overcome that episode and try to adjust to the pain or disability so their lives can be as normal as possible. Yet the pain is only controlled but never completely gone (My child without limits, 2016).
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to say that occupational therapy does not help at all, and it is simply a way in which these therapists make money and psychologically manipulate people that they are getting better. A lot of effort is required to return these patients to normal life, and occupational therapy would help them learn the tasks they once did with more or less the same ease. For example, patients that have undergone a serious accident and are confined to the wheelchair might be taught how to use it and even then learn how to maintain their hygiene- all the various acts that are crucial to making a person feel and behave as normal as the others. Learning all this, at least, helps the person overcome emotional pain, and it also helps reduce physical pain, and people become stronger in controlling and conforming with the pain.
Occupational therapy is a great advancement towards the liberation of the physically and mentally disabled people from dependency on other caregivers for performing even the simplest of everyday tasks. The occupational therapy is convenient, and though it takes a lot of time, it is very effective once the results begin to step out. Although occupational therapy is not a complete and definite method of curing pain and does not help a patient get over it, it is still important in helping a person learn and adapt to the normal ways of life and return to their former lifestyle. There are being made efforts on academic and practitioner levels to increase the availability of occupational therapists for people who are facing disorders and making occupational therapy more effective. In addition to that, there is a need for increased education in the public regarding chronic pains and their rehabilitation through occupational therapies. Doing this would generate interest of people to become professionals at providing this service (Web MD, 2016).
Occupational therapy cannot cure the pain completely which may be a misconception that people harbor and many a times, physical therapy and occupational therapy overlap and work together to get the pain better. It is a known fact that arthritis pain cannot go away no matter what treatment the patient takes. People who visit occupational therapists then, only seek the aid to understanding their pain and how to prevent it from worsening and controlling it from severity.
Conclusion:
The basic need for occupational therapy arises after an injury has occurred and undergoing a certain amount of treatment and recovery, the patient is then recommended to an Occupational therapist to learn how to reduce the pain or keep it to tolerable levels by certain exercises and regimes that are done after the patient has been to a physical therapist.
