After your injury, you may be referred to an Occupational Therapist through the NHS or your personal injury lawyers may be able to arrange for you to have occupational therapy privately.
However, it is quite likely that you will not have come across this specialism before and may wish to understand what to expect before attending your first appointment. If that is the case, this article is for you.
At Irwin Mitchell, a lot of our brain injured clients work with an Occupational Therapist and therefore, we have the pleasure of meeting and getting to know lots of wonderful and highly skilled therapists such as Gemma Hobson, an Occupational Therapist from Rehabilitate Therapy Ltd.
An Occupational Therapist discusses their role
Who better to describe the role of an Occupational Therapist than Gemma herself:
āHi, my name is Gemma and Iāve been working as an Occupational Therapist for almost 20 years. I work with people who have experienced multiple physical, neurological and psychological injuries, including brain injuries.
I visit people in their own homes, places of work and out in the community, offering a variety of opportunities for them to try new (or old) ventures and regain skills that may have become difficult since sustaining their injuries. I love working creatively with people to help them realise whatās important to them, what their aspirations are and how to make them happen, in what can often be very challenging circumstances.
The beauty of occupational therapy is that we empower people to maximise their chances of recovery in all areas of daily living. This can often include helping them regain or fine tune skills in areas in which they are experiencing problems including thinking skills, vision, physical limitations, accessing work or community activities or building self-esteem, social skills and confidence to return to work environments.
Other areas where occupational therapy can add value is working with people experiencing difficulties with the thinking and physical aspects of planning their daily routine, managing their households including budgeting and domestic tasks, for example. People living with a brain injury can also experience high levels of fatigue. A key area of occupational therapy is to identify how someone can better manage these fatigue levels, through education and providing a regime that can help reduce fatigue and improve quality of life in all aspects of daily living.
I work alongside other health care professionals and assistants, offering clients different ways of achieving their goals and finding fulfilment in their everyday lives. I also train new support workers and occupational therapy assistants to ensure they can provide a seamless service, working on a clientās goals to improve their overall independence.ā
An Occupational Therapist’s role from a personal injury lawyer’s viewpoint
The above explains occupational therapy in a nutshell and provides a small insight to the work of these talented specialists. I will expand on this and provide you with some further information below.
Upon hearing the word āoccupationā many people think that an Occupational Therapist will only be able to assist with employment related difficulties but this is not the caseā¦
Jargon Buster!
Occupations refer to the everyday activities that people do as individuals, in families and with communities to occupy time and bring meaning and purpose to life.
Occupations include things people need to, want to and are expected to do.
Occupational Therapists work closely with the rest of your multi-disciplinary rehabilitation team (often referred to as MDT). There may be certain elements of your rehabilitation which require a collaborative effort. For example, a Psychologist or Physiotherapist may work with the Occupational Therapist to ensure that any treatment is fully considered and is appropriate when looking at all of your needs. It may be that the different therapists arrange for joint sessions to take place in which treatment can be implemented.
We work with lots of people who have sustained traumatic brain injuries and from the feedback we receive, the resounding conclusion is that they are extremely grateful for the input an Occupational Therapist is able to provide. They often feel that this is one of the most beneficial areas of rehabilitation as it really focusses on day to day tasks to help improve someoneās quality of life whilst other elements of their injury may be troubling them. It seems that the real world application of occupational therapy is particularly attractive to our clients and from this, they build great relationships with their therapist.
I hope that this article has helped put you at ease regarding the instruction of an Occupational Therapist but if you are still unsure, I would encourage you to speak with the therapist, explain your concerns and they will outline ways in which they can help.
Produced by Ellie Taylor
Ellie Taylor is a Paralegal in the Sheffield Serious Injury team at Irwin Mitchell. The team specialise in spinal cord injuries and brain injury. Ellie has worked at Irwin Mitchell for 6 years and is currently working towards qualifying as a Legal Executive.
About Irwin Mitchell
Irwin Mitchell are a national law firm whose solicitors work hard to make things easier for their clients and their family. Over the past 2 years they have helped clients recover more than Ā£1 billion in compensation, but this is only part of the story, their solicitors also help clients access the rehabilitation, medical care and support needed to achieve the best recovery possible.
How can Brain Injury Group help?
Brain Injury Group is a network of approved personal injury solicitors with brain injury expertise. Moreover, our member firms have the complex injury experience to get the best possible rehabilitation and compensation for brain injuries.
Brain injury rehabilitation is important; to us, to our members, to you and towards getting the best outcome. We can help get you that best outcome. Get in touch to find out more from our brain injury experts.
