Being the victim of a Stroke can be a very traumatic experience for anyone, but Occupational Therapy can help our patients on their road to recovery and independence! Stroke victims experience various physical impairments and cognitive changes which leads to losing independence in their daily activities. This can cause feeling of depression and anxiety as daily tasks that were once simple are now difficult or seem imposible. But fear not, Occupational Therapy can play a crucial role in the rehabilitation process and help patients regain their independence and improve our patient’s emotional outlook as they regain their functions and faculties.
Occupational Therapy help rehabilitate patients with the following key components.
Patient Assessment
The Occupational Therapist will conduct a thorough evaluation of the individual’s physical, cognitive, and emotional abilities. This identifies areas the patient has difficulty with, and sets specific goals specially catered to each patient’s needs and functional limitations.
Training for Activities of Daily Living (ADL)
ADLs are daily basic functions of daily care that everybody takes for granted when we are healthy. Due to stroke many of these activities become difficult or impossible to perform. These activities are basic self care tasks such as dressing, bathing, eating, and grooming. As Occupational Therapists it is our task to improve our patient’s ability to perform these tasks using adaptive techniques or using assistive devices.
Upper Extremity Rehabilitation
People who suffer from strokes can often experience weakness or paralysis in the arms and hands. Through exercises, stretching, and strengthening techniques our patients regain function and improve their fine motor skills.
Cognitive Rehabilitation
Strokes can cause cognitive impairments in our patients. These can manifest as memory loss, attention deficits, or difficulty with problem solving. But fear not as there are various cognitive exercises and strategies to improve cognitive function that help regain independence!
Adaptive Equipment and Assistive Devices
There are various types of adaptive equipment and assistive advices that we can recommend and train our patients with that make daily tasks much easier and independently manageable!
Home Modification
There are many modifications like grab bars or ramps, that we can advise our patients on to make their home more accesible and enhance our patient’s safety in their home environment!
Fatigue Management
Patients who have suffered a stroke tend to experience more fatigue than usual, which affects their ability to participate in daily activities. Fortunately, there are energy conservation techniques and pacing strategies we can teach our patients to improve their ability to get their daily tasks done.
Functional Mobility Training
If the stroke has affected our patient’s mobility, we can work on transfer training (safely moving one surface to another) and balance exercises help to gain strength, endurance in order for our patients to perform ADLs safely and independently.
Above all Advance Rehabilitation Services seek to have our patient’s regain a positive outlook through their re-gain of physical mobility, independence, and return of our patient’s social life post stroke. If you have any questions for us, always feel free to Contact Us with any questions.