This study explores occupational therapy and this review showed that there are many advantages for community dwelling elderly people when they engage in OT services. This systematic review combined 17 articles that looked at the benefits of OT.

Six types of interventions were identified that addressed depression, anxiety, or mental health-related quality of life: exercise or movement based, behavioral therapy and stroke education, behavioral therapy only, stroke education only, care support and coordination, and community-based interventions that included occupational therapy. Evidence from well-conducted research supports using problem-solving or motivational interviewing behavioral techniques to address depression. The evidence is inconclusive for using multicomponent exercise programs to combat depression after stroke and for the use of stroke education and care support and coordination interventions to address poststroke anxiety. One study provided support for an intensive multidisciplinary home program in improving depression, anxiety, and health-related quality of life.

This study focuses on parent-delivered paly interventions, aiming to address the social difficulties of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The intervention was evaluated from three perspectives: effectiveness, feasibility, and appropriateness. Three themes emerged: the clinic play environment as a sanctuary, parental barriers to intervention delivery, and tools for repeating learned lessons.

This study explores the Family Intervention for Improving Occupational Performance (FI-OP) program and looks at mother and child interactions as well as play performance. After the intervention, mother-child interaction was significantly better in the FI-OP group than in the playroom group. The children in the FI-OP group also demonstrated significantly greater improvement in play skills, but not in playfulness.

This study focuses on broadening data on patients with brain tumors to not only North America but also Canada. This should widen our knowledge on the use of occupational therapy services in postacute settings.

This study was used to support Tilt in space wheelchairs and whether or not they have a positive or negative effect in residential care. Tilt-in-space (TIS) wheelchairs are common in residential care, but little empirical evidence exists regarding how they are used by residents and staff in these settings. As part of a larger study exploring the use of wheeled mobility in these facilities, we conducted a sub-study to examine how TIS wheelchairs are used in practice and to explore the experiences of the residents who use them. We conducted a series of three participant observations and interviews with 6 residents or their family members and interviewed 10 staff. Our analysis identified taking control as the main overarching theme, subsuming two subthemes: promoting comfort and mobilizing to participate. Findings suggest that power TIS wheelchairs enable user control, whereas manual TIS wheelchairs promote staff control. These findings illustrate how TIS wheelchairs may enable or inhibit occupational engagement and suggest that vigilance is necessary to prevent their use as a restraint.

Deep pressure stimulation has been used in therapeutic practice because of the assumption that it changes physiological arousal. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of deep pressure stimulation, applied with a Vayu Vest (Therapeutic Systems), on both autonomic arousal and performance in a normative adult sample. A repeated-measures, repeated-baseline design was used with participants completing a performance test before and after deep pressure application. A convenience sample of 50 adults participated in the study. Results showed that wearing the Vayu Vest for even short periods of time reduced sympathetic arousal and non-stimulus-driven electrical occurrences. Concomitant increases in parasympathetic arousal were found. Performance improvements were noted after wearing the Vayu Vest, potentially because of changes in arousal. We conclude that deep pressure stimulation is capable of eliciting changes in autonomic arousal and may be a useful modality in diagnostic groups seen by occupational therapy practitioners.

This article provides a real life example of different therapeutic interventions to do with patients after they have had a stroke. This will be part of a series to provide multiple ways that we can provide our patients with occupation-based interventions.

This study focuses on using SI with children who have been diagnosed with PDD. Both participants displayed significant improvements in the areas of social interaction, approach to new activities, response to holding or hugging, and response to movement. Decreases were noted in the frequency and duration of disruptive behaviors (e.g., high activity levels, aggressive behaviors), with an increase in functional behaviors, such as spontaneous speech, purposeful play, and attention to activities and conversation.

This is a study on screening for autism early in the neonatal period and on. Atypical social interactions were not observed among infants who later screened positive for autism. Instead, the presence of gaze aversion and endpoint nystagmus was related to better developmental outcomes. Understanding early behaviors associated with autism may enable early identification and lead to timely therapy activation to improve function.

Higher therapy intensity was associated with shorter LOS. Higher PT and OT intensities were associated with greater odds of improving by at least 1 stage in mobility and ADL functional independence across each condition, according to the FIM. The OT intensity was associated with an improved executive control stage for patients with stroke, and PT and OT intensities were associated with improved executive control stage for patients with cardiovascular and pulmonary conditions.

Twenty subjects completed the 14-day treatment. Two adverse outcomes, a recurrent stroke and a death, occurred in the traditional group; 1 CIM subject met rehabilitation goals and was discharged before completing 14 inpatient days. The CIM treatment group had significantly higher scores on total ARA and pinch subscale scores (P,0.05). Differences in the mean ARA grip, grasp, and gross movement subscale scores did not reach statistical significance. UE activities of daily living performance was not significantly different between groups, and no subject withdrew because of pain or frustration. A clinical trial of CIM therapy during acute rehabilitation is feasible. CIM was associated with less arm impairment at the end of treatment. Long-term studies are needed to determine whether CIM early after stroke is superior to traditional therapies.

The majority of OT time was spent in impairment-focused activities (37.5%) or training basic activities of daily living (31.9%). Treatment progressed to more advanced activities over time (eg, less bed mobility, more home management), yet little time was spent on community integration or leisure activities and with very few patients. Successful patients received more higher-level activities, whereas unsuccessful patients received larger amounts of basic-level activities.

OT activities focused on a combination of remediating impairments and retraining specific functional tasks, at the ability level of each individual patient, and provided higher-level activities as patients improved their function. More time in higher-level activities was related to greater success in rehabilitation. However, higher-level activities remain the least common activities provided during inpatient rehabilitation.

This is a handout about how you can help infants through adolescents learn through play. Often times we forget how important play is for children. As an occupational therapist it is imperative that we focus on play because that is a child's main occupation. This handout provides not only therapists but parents with a good idea on how to incorporate play into learning and progressing.

This article focuses on whether a patient's willingness to participate is related to their length of stay. The study included 242 patients that were divided into three groups based on willingness to participate - "good", "occasional poor", "frequent poor". The researchers found that those who occasionally participated in the fair to poor range ended up achieving the same FIM score, however it took them 3 days longer on average than a patient with good participation. They also proved that patients who participated in the fair to poor range were often discharged to another facility, rather than being discharged to their homes. This article proves what many clinicians have always suspected, however now their is research to back this up.

This article talks about the Data-Driven Decision Making (DDDM) process, and how clinician's should be using this to guide their practice using clinical reasoning with a focus on data. The DDDM involves 11 steps that help us as therapists make the right decision when we are researching or utilizing new treatments with our patients. This article highlights that to help us reach our Centennial Vision, utilizing this approach would be a great way to provide practitioners with a systematic process for explication reasoning, using assessment data to develop and tailor client-centered intervention, while also measuring and reporting outcomes.