Occupational Therapy for Stroke Rehabilitation

Public health officials consider heart disease the nation's number one health-related concern. Despite outranking cancer in the number of fatalities and recovering survivors, those who do survive a stroke deal with a long and difficult recovery. Stroke patients are often faced with the harrowing fact that without therapy, they may never regain any previous independence.

Anatomy of a Stroke

• A cerebral vascular accident, also known as a CVA or stroke, is essentially a heart attack for the brain. Whereas a myocardial infarction is caused by a substantial blockage that hampers blood flow from the heart to the body, strokes result from a blockage in the arteries leading to the brain. Since the brain is the operations center for the body, various functions naturally become either negatively affected to a degree or are lost altogether.

Therapy in Stroke Rehab

• Brain damage is measured by the extent of the destruction caused by the stroke and the area(s) most affected. Partial paralysis (called a hemiplegic condition), poor response to stimuli, a lack of communication skills, memory loss and emotional disturbances are commonly reported among stroke patients. With a doctor's approval, the goal of the occupational therapy department (sometimes a joint effort with the physical and speech therapy departments) is to design a rehab program based on a patient's activities of daily living ( ADLs)--basic everyday skills needed for a person to take care of him or herself.

The Goal of Therapy

• Occupational therapy for stroke patients involves focusing on muscle coordination and both basic and fine motor skills, which nearly all stroke patients find difficult. The idea is to teach the victim new ways of performing these basic activities, such as bathroom habits, self grooming, self dressing and feeding. The goal for occupational therapy is to get patients to actively engage their minds and introduce usage of affected arms and legs to achieve simple yet laborious tasks, such as stacking variously sized cones, working with door locks and building with small blocks.

Treatment Sessions

• Patient action plans, the agreed-upon treatment schedule written by the physician and the occupational therapist (OT), are carried out by OTAs (Occupational Therapy Assistants) using he previously stated tools or more common household items that have modified for safety. Highly bendable spoons and pizza cutters in lieu of the usual household cutlery are an example. Often exercises are performed with a patients enjoyment in mind, as occupational therapy is based on the principle that if patients do not find an activity useful, they will not exert much effort in its performance.

Outlook

• Research shows that intervention by occupational therapy is highly beneficial to stroke patients and at getting them to achieve functional independence to an acceptable degree. The number of sessions required is entirely dependent on the severity of a patient's stroke, although most prescribed therapy can be successfully completed in about three weeks. After discharge, OTs give their patients a modified treatment plan to complete at home, empowering the patient by giving them the tools to continue their therapy.