Adaptive Therapy: Overcoming Environmental Barriers
Adaptive therapy may be defined as a set of services and strategies in occupational and physical therapy that uses assistive technology to help individuals with functional disabilities overcome environmental barriers[1].
“Assistive technology” is an umbrella term that includes assistive, adaptive and rehabilitative devices for individuals with disabilities and also includes the process of selecting the most appropriate ones. Assistive technology promotes independence by enabling individuals to perform tasks that are otherwise unable to perform. The disabilities can result from traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury or other catastrophic injury.
While the term “adaptive technology” is often used synonymously with assistive technology, they really have different meanings. Adaptive technology refers to items that are used by disabled persons that are specifically designed to increase or maintain the capabilities of individuals with disabilities. Often, the disabilities involved result from the same causes as one another. Thus, adaptive technology is a subset of assistive technology.
Much, but not all, of adaptive therapy comes within the realm of “occupational therapy.” Some is in the nature of physical therapy. Occupational therapy is not, strictly speaking, an attempt to return the individual to work as the term might suggest. Instead, the term is usually used to connote the restoration of the individual’s performance in activities of daily living and skills in functional performance. This is accomplished by attempting to enhance underlying deficit performance skills, motor control and teaching compensatory strategies when recovery of deficit performance areas is unlikely to be successful, and is especially applicable to individuals who have suffered strokes[2]. Researchers have concluded that individuals who have received occupational therapy interventions are more likely to regain at least a degree of independence in their ability to perform personal activities of daily living[3]. For example, in working with clients with hemiplegia, NeuLife’s innovative training of them in one-handed techniques for dressing as part of their Client Goal Plan has proven valuable in achieving the best possible outcome for the client and in enhancing their independence. Occupational therapy is an integral part of each Client Goal Plan and is an integral element of the innovative and among the clinically relevant services furnished to each NeuLife client.
Because one of the goals of NeuLife’s innovative post-acute care is to advance its clients toward independence through innovative care, a customized 27-Point Client Goal Plan, residential services and supported living, it employs innovative tools in the course of providing adaptive therapy to achieve successful sustained outcomes. These include:
- Head protectors to guard against injuries from falls
- Adaptive reading aids
- Pill organizers to minimize the possibility of medication errors
- Reaching aids
- Large button universal remote control devices
- Tables for over the bed, couch or chair
- Adapted scissors modified for those with fine motor impairments
- Key turners that make house and car keys easier to turn
- Bedroom aids, such as bedrails, guard rail pads and blanket supports
- Adaptive writing aids, such as pens and pencils that are easier to grip, or weighted pens that make writing easier
- Mirror boxes
- Reading focus cards
- SET card game
The innovative therapies at NeuLife include the introduction of the client to tools and therapies such as these and protocols of how best to employ them in the course of their rehabilitation and their road to independence.
Proper and timely post-acute rehabilitation that may determine the difference between disability and independence is what NeuLife refers to as the “platinum post-acute period”—the crucial window following acute care that is needed to nurture the whole person to health with specialized, clinically relevant services.
NeuLife’s philosophy is that healing, wellness and personal fulfillment are best accomplished in a positive and uplifting therapeutic environment where caring staff encourage, assist and support each client so he or she may achieve specific goals. NeuLife believes personal fulfillment is equally as important as goals to increase function and independence. NeuLife seeks to achieve, for all of its clients, maximized, sustained outcomes that exceed the expectations of all persons served.
NeuLife, in Mount Dora, Florida, is a fully accessible specialized residential post-acute program providing specialized rehabilitation to individuals diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI), traumatic amputations and other catastrophic injuries.
2725 Robie Avenue
Mount Dora, Florida 32757
Call: 800.626.3836
Email: [email protected]
Visit: NeuLifeRehab.com
[1] Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary published by F.A. Davis Co.
[2] Occupational Therapy for stroke patients, a systematic review, Stroke, 2003; 34:676-687
[3] Occupational Therapy for patients with activities of daily living after stroke, Legg, et al, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2006, Issue 4
