Skip to main content

OT and Depression

Another emerging niche in the field of occupational therapy is depression. Depression is a very common mental illness that affects countless individuals. Because all of the symptoms of depression are physically unseen, sometimes it is not taken seriously by others. What I love about the field of OT is that it is not limited to physical conditions, but instead takes any and all diseases into account that are preventing an individual from living happily and independent.
From an occupational therapist's perspective, depression is an illness that keeps individuals from wanting to do activities and occupations that are important to them. Symptoms include sadness, irritability, fatigue, etc. In the older population, this disease can even bring forth physical symptoms such as headaches and stomach aches.
An OT can help an individual suffering with depression help regain satisfaction and a sense of responsibility and accomplishment through completing the tasks that they would usually do. They work together through finding out what is keeping the client from completing these tasks in order to get him or her back to a normal, productive routine. Occupational therapists can also help build up a client's self-esteem by helping him or her replace bad habits with good ones to help the individual feel more satisfied. An OT will work with each client in finding a healthy balance between relationships, work, and leisure in order to cope with his or her depression and become more satisfied with life again.
Though I am not sure that I want to work in a mental health setting in the future, I think this scope of OT is extremely important and can help so many individuals who find themselves in a hopeless situation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Fundamentals of Caring Review

For this assignment, I decided to watch a movie called The Fundamentals of Caring. The title of this movie had caught my eye while scrolling through  Netflix  a few times before, but I had never taken the time to watch it.  This movie is about a retired author named Ben who decides to enroll in a class and become a caregiver. He takes on a full time job caring for a boy named Trevor who has muscular dystrophy. Although Ben has no previous experience as a caregiver, it does not take long for him to gain the respect of Trevor. He decides to get Trevor out of the house and away from his dull daily routine to embark on a road trip together. Trevor saw and experienced things that he would never have had the chance to do before Ben came into his life. Ben made sure that Trevor could check things off of his bucket list without solely focusing on the worry of medicines and treatments for a week. My main takeaway from this movie was how Ben did not treat Trevor differently...
5 comments
Read more

Leadership Summit Reflection

I met with my fellow classmates Rachel Scarbrough, Emily White, and Caitlyn White for my leadership summit. We discussed our ideas and current plans for group facilitation, as well as the theories that we based our protocols on. Rachel is presenting on budgeting, Emily is presenting on volunteer opportunities, and Caitlyn is presenting on care of pets. I enjoyed getting to hear their ideas since we all are facilitating different group discussions. Brainstorming with my classmates really helped me come up with more ideas for my group protocol. I think it is important to collaborate with fellow colleagues in the school and professional setting in order to not only help you think your own ideas through, but also to receive feedback from others who might be able to add more creativity to your plan. I will absolutely do this when I am a practicing OT. I enjoyed this experience and found it to be very beneficial for this group assignment.
1 comment
Read more

Journal Article Review

The article I chose to review was titled  The Benefits of Group Occupational Therapy for Patients With Parkinson’s Disease. I found this article through AJOT, and chose it because I am very interested in Parkinson's Disease interventions. This study looked at how progressive physical symptoms of Parkinson's disease affect participation in activities of daily living.  The aim of the study was to see whether a group rehab program using an OT approach specifically designed for IPD, in association with ideal medical management, could maintain the functional status of these patients.  A two group experimental design was used in this study. Individuals with Idiopathic Parkinson's disease were randomly assigned to either an experimental group receiving group occupational therapy intervention, or a control group receiving only medicinal treatment.  Immediately after randomization, the  experimental group received 10 sessions of group occupational therapy....
Post a Comment
Read more