GET Help: Online Occupational Therapy
Many people have been asking how online Occupational Therapy (OT) works and how a therapist can provide effective treatment. Telehealth Occupational Therapy is very much the same as in-person occupational therapy, and sometimes even more engaging and interactive for the client.
What is Occupational Therapy?
First, let’s look at what general occupational therapy is. What we do is functional therapy, looking at the word “occupation” not as “vocation” but as activities one performs during the day to “occupy” their time. We then, with the patient, identify and develop a treatment plan to improve the difficult task by working on whole-body systems, environments, cognition, emotional responses, and support. We provide treatment sessions that work on foundational skills like strengthening, motor learning, and habit training. We can also help provide ways to adapt the environment or teach adaptive ways to perform tasks.
For children, we look at their important life stage occupations of learning, play, socialization, writing, and motor skills. Let’s say the child is having problems with being able to stay seated in class and getting dressed in the morning. Through an evaluation, the OT can determine that the child has sensory processing issues and low tone, and can begin treating in these areas. The OT may start with some physical exercises for strengthening core for sitting, some sensory activities such as heavy work for proprioception, and may ask them to do a task in sitting or dressing task with adaptations to directly train a functional need.
How is OT adapted for Telehealth?
It_’s pretty simple and may be even more beneficial for the parents and the child. What we do is, develop this same treatment plan, but have the parent or caregiver be an active participant and support within the session.
Benefits of Online Occupational Therapy:
The child may feel more comfortable talking to someone on the computer versus going to an outpatient clinic.
Sessions from home save drive time and energy getting your child out of the door.
Children in remote locations can get access to quality care that may be unavailable in their area.
OTs are trained to be “hands-off” as much as possible, and to let the patient struggle a tad so they can learn. The nature of telehealth physically limits how hands-on an OT can be, and thus allows for better treatment as the patient has to be very engaged in the process.
It is considered best practice for the parent to be an active participant in therapy. This is because one to two sessions a week isn’t enough for your child to consistently use skills outside of the therapy session. If the parent can participate in sessions and learn what and how the child should be practicing, they can follow through with recommended activities at a much better success rate. Being an active participant also gives the parent a sense of control of the situation, as well as gives them discrete time to set aside and have fun and play with their child with the support of a professional. They may learn to play or communicate with their child that they may have not thought of.
Available in sickness and in health
Is Online OT Right for My Child?
Telehealth is not for every client. Some children need hands-on stretching, physical support, and transfer assistance (aka manual and handling techniques) that OTs are specially trained to do. However, many issues can be worked around. With an OT’s creative mind, we can find ways to work on most therapy goals with the support of the parent. We can train the parent how to provide physical support when needed, and this is beneficial as the parents are the most important people to learn handling and manual techniques for their child. Wondering is online occupational therapy is right for your child? Take our survey to find out!
The field of occupational therapy is constantly changing. Online occupational therapy engages patients through the ever-growing technology realm and requires the OT to stand back to have the caregiver be the active facilitator. It adds more creative treatment strategies and modalities that an OT can work with and promotes generalization when the caregiver uses the skills they’ve learned to help their child outside of the therapy room. It opens doors for therapy to people without quality services in their area, or for those who have difficulty getting out of the house.
