For me, the concept that occupational therapy belongs in primary care began to form slowly, with those brief, casual conversations that practitioners have every day in their personal lives, such as at a school or community event, offering small pieces of advice about how to adapt an activity, explaining a medical diagnosis or clarifying a physician’s recommendations, and suggesting how those recommendations can be reasonably incorporated into daily life. So often the person would respond, “Why didn’t someone explain this to me at the doctor’s office? I would have done it if I had just understood better.”
During intervention sessions across a variety of settings, occupational therapy professionals working with a client with a specific injury or diagnosis naturally expand the occupational profile to gain a complete picture of the client, to understand his or her roles and responsibilities, and to determine what challenges limit his or her full participation...
