Unveiling the Significance of Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy (OT) is an interesting discipline which has its roots in just about every other form of therapy and medicine. Many aspects of OT are seen in everyday life, yet are unnoticed because of how common place they are in our society. When I thought of OT I thought of specialized equipment such as a modified spoon to help someone who has suffered a stroke to eat by themselves again. This is one aspect, however there are many more instances that OT assist other medical professionals. Throughout this paper I will discuss more in depth on what it is an occupational therapist does and why this type of therapy is essential to our activities of daily living. According to The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) “Occupational therapy allows people across the lifespan to do the activities they want and need to do” (www.aota.org). Occupational therapy’s goal is to

Occupational therapy has been around for a very long time, and has always had the goal of gaining independence. The first instance of occupational therapy goes back to 100 BCE with the Greek physician Asclepiades. He would implement procedures such as message, music and baths to help his patients recover. Asclepiades was one of the first people to implement humane treatment of mental illness which would later be lost. Almost two millenniums later, in the early 1800’s, Phillipe Pinel brought back the idea of ethical treatment towards the mentally ill called moral treatment and occupation, which essentially did similar practices as the ancient Greeks before. It wasn’t until 1917, after the first world war when soldiers were returning home with mental and physical disabilities, that occupational therapy became acknowledged as its own practice. “It was during this time that occupational therapy became more closely aligned with medicine, creating a more scientific approach to the field of study”