Occupational therapy

Occupational therapy is one of the priority areas of the Bobath centre. It is a discipline that helps a person in everyday life: developing, restoring and maintaining the skills needed for the activities that matter to their health and daily living, and preventing loss of activity and further decline. The term comes from the word occupation and refers not only to work but to every meaningful activity in a person's life. The occupational therapist's main goal is to help patients with physical and mental impairments master self-care skills (dressing, undressing, hygiene, eating), take part in productive activity and leisure, and reach the greatest possible independence.

Three principles guide the work: a client-centred approach, where the client's needs come first in planning; occupation-based intervention, where patient and therapist work together on the activities that matter most to the patient; and evidence-based practice, where decisions rest on current scientific data.

With a child, the therapist takes age norms for intellectual and motor development into account. A child with a developmental disorder from birth often depends on outside help and cannot always solve the problems of self-care, learning, play and leisure alone. Work starts with an assessment of the activities the child needs, how well they are performed, the child's abilities and the factors that help or hinder, including the environment and health status; the therapist and parents then agree specific goals. Intervention includes teaching methods for the child and family, techniques that help the child complete parts of an activity, hand function training, safe handling and care techniques, adaptation of the environment, and selection and adaptation of assistive devices. The therapist adapts both the activity and the environment so the task can be done more effectively, which improves quality of life.

Independent eating is a separate area. The basic rule is correct positioning during feeding: only in a properly chosen chair can a child feel safe and comfortable and put all their energy into the food. Full use of a spoon and fork is usually expected by age two, but for children with special needs cutlery is chosen individually by shape, volume, material and colour. Our therapists pay attention to every area of a child's life, help parents with the practical problems they meet at home, and even in the hardest cases help the child do, step by step, what seemed impossible.