Guyana joins world in observing Occupational Therapy Day

World Occupational Therapy Day is observed on October 27 annually, and this year it is being held under the theme, “Belong. Be You.”
In observance of World Occupational Therapy Day, Occupational Therapist Zoe Daniels attached at the Regional Special Education Need/Disability Diagnostic and Treatment Centre explained the importance of this simple yet significant form of therapy.
“So, basically this theme, and I love this theme, because, for me, it is where we’re putting the persons with disabilities on an independent level so, for the part belong, it still shows that you belong in society and you belong here and, be you. So, despite your disability and despite whatever limitations you may have, with the assistance of occupational therapy you can still be you, meaning being independent to function in society or for your daily living skills,” she expressed.

She stated that occupational therapy is an individualised therapy – a session that gives persons independence or restores functionality after, for example, they were injured in a motor vehicle accident, after they would have had a stroke, or if they have a disability or disease that can cause impairments.
At the centre, there is a team that conducts various assessments. Daniels stated that she normally does the occupational therapy assessment, whether it’s for a school-aged child or a child that is not at the level of school age as yet.
“I would look at the developmental chart and based on where the child is at, I would conduct the assessment and then we would set goals to see if the child can accomplish them within a given amount of time… we would also keep working with that child to bring them up to their developmental age,” she shared.
Paediatrics setting, as she calls it, is whereby occupational therapists work with the children on bringing them up to their developmental levels, getting them to function in school and to function as a normal child, to play and get set for life.
“For children, we would normally do an assessment to carry out to see what are the different areas that the child is lacking. So, basically, let’s say you have, say a three-year-old baby, whether its boy or girl, and you notice that your child is three years old and still not attempting to hold their own feeding bottle or feeding cup, the child is three years old and still not fully toilet trained, if the child is not eating by themselves, holding their spoons or attempting to brush their teeth. Those are the little red flags that you can pick up and be like, why is my child not holding the bottle although I’m trying my best. So, that is one of the main things that you can see,” Daniels stated.
She pointed out that there are various areas for occupational therapy.
Some of these are ergonomics, which she noted is “mostly like setting up the work environment – even our homes or our bedrooms or our offices or so on. And we basically will check to see if the desk or the bench is too high or too low for persons who are working with the computers or laptops, if you know, their eye levels are maybe too high or the computer level is too low from them, if the chair is too low. If we’re standing in the kitchen for doing your cooking and so on. Maybe your kitchen cupboard is too high for you while cutting or the sink is too low so you will have to be bending over a lot more. So that is ergonomical part of occupational therapy.”
“We’re gonna go into the homes or work areas and we’re going to assess and see how best we could modify the areas for you to help prevent pain,” she further explained.
She identified another area as the geriatrics setting, which she noted is mostly associated with older persons who would have suffered from stroke, amputation due to diabetes mellitus, or was involved in a vehicular or sport incident.
The third area, whose importance she stressed, was mental health, which is even more important during this time of the pandemic.
“So, we would talk to persons, check their cognition, their orientation, checking on how they are doing and try our best to see if we can work with them so that they can cope through this pandemic time,” Daniels stated.
Occupational therapy, she noted, is a very interesting field.
“So, persons are not aware of what is occupational therapy and when you hear the word occupation, it’s not really the occupation of you being a nurse or clerk or the profession we would hold, but it’s this simple dressing ourselves, bathing ourselves, brushing our teeth, combing our hair and so on. So those are what we call the occupations of our daily lives,” she explained.
“If it is that you had an injury or so on, an occupational therapist would work with you to bring you back to what it is that you’re expected to do.”