What is the role of occupational therapy after a spinal cord injury?

Occupational therapy is focused on self care, and in a hospital setting that can mean simple things like feeding yourself, brushing your teeth or dressing. And then later on, that can transfer to returning to work, or returning to school or even starting to drive again.

With occupational therapy, our goal is to help people live life to the fullest. We work with people to maximize their independence with their occupations. As a field, we take the term “occupation” very broadly—it’s not someone’s job, it’s everything that they need to do during the day. We work with people throughout their life spans, from children and older adults in order to help them improve their quality of life and do the activities they want to do. In the spinal cord injury population, we specialize in maximizing people’s independence with their self-care, and being able to do their roles and the activities they want to do in the home and in the community.

Occupational therapy is a profession that's concerned with everyday living. So, that's what we focus on: activities that are meaningful, purposeful and we try to facilitate people engaging in everyday living as they choose. For example, going to school, being a parent, being a worker, volunteering, participating in their activities at home, reading a book, making a meal. So, occupational therapy by definition is a profession that is concerned with everyday living.

Primarily, your occupational therapist is really interested in learning about what the things are that you want to get back to doing. So, were you perhaps an athlete before your injury? Are there things you want to achieve in that way?