What is the difference between physical therapy and occupational therapy?
I am wanting to go into physical therapy or sports medicine when i get older. I was wondering if someone could tell me what the difference is between physical therapy and occupational therapy though. Thanks in advance! Happy new year!!
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Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy both aim to help a patient improve their abilities. The Physical Therapist will do this primarily by working with the patient to change their muscles, balance, strength, power, or stamina etc. Their treatment will usually include exercises that will work on different muscles or movements so that the patient increases their amount of movement, or relearns to move in a correct way. The physical therapist may need to work on the patient first by applying heat, or moving their arms legs etc for them. A physical therapist can work with sports injuries (as you say), and also with people who have had accidents ie. Stroke, Head Injury, amputation etc. They also work with people who need to improve their balance i.e. the elderly who have lost mobility skills, their input them helps prevent a patient from falling and breaking their hips etc. Physical therapists are also vital in helping children and adults with disabilities learn how to move.
An Occupational Therapist’s aim is to help a patient to gain as much independence in daily activities as possible. Activities include being able to do essential things like washing, eating etc, things you need to do like food preparation, getting out etc and things they would like to do i.e. working, hobbies etc. Reasons why activities are difficult vary from person to person - so the patient may not be able to eat because they cannot move their arm / hand. Treatment could therefore start with helping the patient improve their hand/ arm movements. This could look like physical therapy. If a patient cannot achieve the movement required though the occupational therapist will then work to adapt the activity - for example by giving the patient the correct specialist cutlery, or a special plate. The OT knows how to help a patient develop their skills, and adapt the activity and the environment - so they can advise to have ramps, lifts etc put in for a new wheelchair user too.
All the treatment that an occupational therapist gives will be activity based. So an OT uses a task as a means of improving a patent’s skill. So a physical therapist will give an exercise ie. making a pinch grip 10 times, but an OT will get the patient to pick up something tiny within an activity that they want to do i.e for a child - playing a game with small counters.
Physical therapist’s tend to have a more in depth knowledge of the muscular skeletal system, occupational therapists are expert in task analysis and working out how to enable someone to do things for themselves,rather than requiring assistance. These 2 disciplines frequently work closely together on the the same patient.
I hope this helps!