Occupational Therapy Month

April is Occupational Therapy Month and The American Occupational Therapy Association’s 2024 theme is Occupational Therapy: Advancing Health, Wellbeing and Quality of Life. 

What is Occupational Therapy?  Simply put, occupational therapy enables people of all ages to participate in daily living.  Our lives are made up of occupations-meaningful everyday activities. 

These occupations can include many roles, such as being a parent, a friend, a spouse, a tennis player, an artist, a cook, or a musician. We generally don’t think about our daily occupations until we have trouble doing them. If a patient is recovering from an injury or navigating a chronic disease, their valued occupations may be disrupted. Occupational therapy incorporates those valued occupations into the rehabilitation process.

An independent study published in Medical Care Research and Review found that “occupational therapy is the only spending category where additional spending has a statistically significant association with lower readmission rates” for the three health conditions studied: heart failure, pneumonia, and acute myocardial infarction.  The researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine used a rigorous methodology “to provide information that hospital executives can use to make efficient resource allocation decisions.” Using Medicare claims and cost data to examine the association between hospital spending for specific services and the CMS Hospital Compare 30-day risk—standardized readmission rates for heart failure, pneumonia, and acute myocardial infarction, the researchers evaluated 19 distinct spending categories (including occupational therapy) using multivariable regressions in 2,791 hospitals for the heart failure analysis; 2,818 hospitals for the pneumonia analysis; and 1,595 hospitals for the acute myocardial infarction analysis. The researchers identified occupational therapy as “one spending category that affects both the clinical and social determinants of health” and noted that “investing in OT has the potential to improve care quality without significantly increasing overall hospital spending.”

 The researchers found six particular occupational therapy interventions that may lower readmissions:

1. Provide recommendations and training for caregivers.

 2. Determine whether patients can safely live independently, or require further rehabilitation or nursing care.

 3. Address existing disabilities with assistive devices so patients can safely perform activities of daily living (e.g., using the bathroom, bathing, getting dressed, making a meal).

4. Perform home safety assessments before discharge to suggest modifications.

 5. Assess cognition and the ability to physically manipulate things like medication containers, and provide training when necessary.

6. Work with physical therapists to increase the intensity of inpatient rehabilitation.

Occupational therapy practitioners are proving to be an essential member of any interprofessional team successfully addressing the changing demands of the health care delivery system.  Celebrate your occupational therapists this month and let them know they are appreciated and a vital part of the home health care team.

Rogers, A. T., Bai, G., Lavin, R. A., & Anderson, G. F. (2016, September 2). Higher hospital spending on occupational therapy is associated with lower readmission rates. Medical Care Research and Review, 1–19. dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077558716666981