Rehabilitation focused assessment and treatment at home/in reach to other settings

(e.g., hospital, residential care/nursing home)

What is rehabilitation?

Rehabilitation is defined by the Royal College of Occupational Therapists (RCOT 2024) as ‘the provision of personalised support to help people manage and recover from periods of physical and mental ill-health’.

The World Health Organization (WHO 2024) define rehabilitation as ‘a set of interventions designed to optimize functioning and reduce disability in individuals with health conditions in interaction with their environment’.

What does rehabilitation mean to me?

From my perspective as an Occupational Therapist, the essence of rehabilitation is to optimise your potential and ability to do the things you want and need to do in your daily life ‘occupations’. Being able to do what is important and meaningful to you will ultimately help to improve your quality of life and your overall wellbeing (physical and mental health).

We all have times in our lives where we are affected by illness and/or disabilities which can lead to difficulty or even make it seem impossible for us to be able to perform our daily occupations, leading to lack of independence and poor health and wellbeing.

As humans, we are highly complex beings, and I am still amazed at how we are able to learn new ways to do things and compensate/adapt to loss of function such as following a brain injury/stroke. Our powerful brains are capable of finding alternative pathways to re-learn how to do specific tasks or find compensatory strategies to engage in our occupations again. As an Occupational Therapist, I have expertise in helping people to regain function through occupational analysis, functional assessments and interventions.

Working alongside you and taking a rehabilitative approach, my focus will be to help you to begin or continue your recovery journey and support you to take control to reduce or remove obstacles blocking your life flow which are impacting on your health and happiness. I will encourage you to flourish and optimise your potential through Occupational Therapy assessment and treatment tailored to your current abilities, personal needs, wishes and your specific goals.

I am also guided by various evidence-based models of practice (e.g., biomechanical frame of reference), approaches (e.g., person-centred, recovery, rehabilitative, holistic), research and clinical guidelines, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence quality standard for Rehabilitation after critical illness which emphasises that rehabilitation which is started early can improve a person’s non-physical and physical functioning and also prevent future problems (NICE 2017).

When and why might I need rehabilitation?

If you are finding it difficult to fulfil your daily occupations such as:

Self-care occupations – such as washing, dressing, personal grooming, preparing food, taking medication.
Productive occupations – such as participating in work and education, care giving, taking care of the home/family/pets, shopping.
Leisure occupations – such as hobbies, exercise, socialising, community groups.

You have problems such as:

Limitations in movement - capacity to use muscles/bones/joints in conjunction to move freely during occupations.
Inadequate muscle strength - capacity to initiate and maintain muscle strength during occupations (e.g., using the forearm muscle groups to facilitate gripping an object effectively in the hand).
Loss of endurance – ability to resist subjective fatigue and therefore sustain occupations over time and distance to personal satisfaction.
Biomechanical conditions – limitations in movement, inadequate muscle strength and loss of endurance whilst engaging in occupations.
Mental health issues (e.g., anxiety, depression, stress, grief/loss, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, agoraphobia).
Cognitive impairment/memory issues.

What are the aims of Occupational Therapy assessment?

Decide whether Occupational Therapy is appropriate or necessary for you.
Begin to build a therapeutic relationship with you.
Establish your abilities, disabilities and the effects of the environment on you.
Formulate a baseline to compare your progress and regress throughout your therapy journey.
Decide what you would like to focus on in the short, medium and long term and agree specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely goals for therapy.
Assist with collaborative decision-making with you regarding the modification of interventions along your therapy journey.
Encourage you and motivate you.
Assessments at various stages of your therapy journey can be used to demonstrate outcomes/evidence of the effectiveness of interventions and your progress.

Methods of assessment:

Observation of occupational performance (e.g., performance of specific occupations/tasks).
Standardised assessment tools/outcome measures.
Profession specific assessments.
Cognitive assessments.
Mental health assessments.
Interviews/questionnaires/rating scales/checklists.
Client and family feedback.
Continuous review/evaluation.

Why should I choose Optimise Life Flow to help me?

Occupational Therapists are the only health profession to practice across physical and mental health with a focus on people’s everyday occupations and are vital in enabling people to live as independently and as fully as possible.

Across the United Kingdom, there is significant variation and inequality in the way that rehabilitation services are commissioned and delivered, often with long wait times for assessment and treatment. This can lead to a person experiencing rapid and life changing/threatening deconditioning and deterioration in health and occupational functioning. As an Independent Occupational Therapist with Advanced (Masters) Level training, skills, knowledge and experience, I am able to respond quickly to your needs, with no waiting lists or time limits on how long or how often I can work with you. I am passionate and determined to help you to fully optimise your life flow and improve your quality of life.