Use Empowering Occupational Therapy
for:

• Purposeful home program activities
• Caregiver instruction sheets
• A quick reference of creative treatment ideas
• Increased patient motivation and compliance
  as a patient selects an activity that is meaningful to him or
  her
• Maximizing your treatment time
• Saving valuable resources by using recycled
  or inexpensive supplies
• Discovering creative new ways to use your
  occupational therapy equipment
• A springboard of ideas to adapt to your unique
  treatment environment/population needs

Empowering Occupational Therapy
encourages a patient to select, complete, and clean
up an activity independently and this means increased patient
ownership and compliance in the treatment plan. Empowering
Occupational Therapy allows your time and resources to be
used more efficiently while building your patient’s self-confidence
and competency.

100 reproducible, purposeful activities written to your patients, not directed at them.

Each activity includes:

• The therapeutic goal the patient is working
  towards
• Follow up activities for the patient to continue
  independently as a home program
• Precautions to warn of potential hazards
• A list of all the inexpensive supplies needed
  so the patients themselves can set up, complete, and clean up
  an activity as independently as possible
• Friendly, large print, easy reading directions
  written to the patient
• Full illustrations
• A list of accomplishments for the patient
  to work towards in order to increase success and personal ownership
  in the occupational therapy treatment plan
• Step by step instructions to prepare for
  the activity including exercises, stretches, and basic positioning

Each treatment category has two levels of difficulty, level aand level b. Level aactivities are easier while the level bactivities aremore challenging. For example, the occupational therapist may turn to the Fine Motor level atreatment category and explain to a patient that he/she may choose any activity within the section. The patient is encouraged to choose an activity that looks meaningful, enjoyable, or purposeful to him/her. Each activityis written so that a patient has all of the information needed to gather the supplies, perform the activity, and cleanup. Thistruly allows maximal independence and a feeling of accomplishment. Of course, not all patients will be able to complete every activity independently and, depending upon the patient’s capabilities, supervision may be needed.Regardless, the activity will encourage the patient to function as independently as possible throughout the activity.To allow your patients maximal independence using this book,we recommend that the supply list at the beginning of eachtreatment category be used to organize boxes of supplies needed for each of the areas. We suggest making a copy of the supply list for each treatment category and affixing it to the appropriate box to ease in maintaining supplies. There is also a master supply list organized alphabetically and by category starting on page 7that may be helpful ingathering all of the supplies. We have intentionally selected or modified activitiesto encourage purposeful and creative use of inexpensive, commonly found items that fit within most any occupational therapy department budget. Many unique activities were chosen to meet a variety of patient interests, encourage new interests and serve as a springboard for creative activity analysis.

Many of the activities are appropriate for use in a home program. A patient may start an activity in the clinic, stop theactivity for individual treatment time, and then continue the activity later on his/her own. The activities may be copied and used as teaching tools for caregivers. Use the activities tosave you valuable time in explaining a treatment idea to be carried out at home.

Empower yourself with creative, purposeful treatment activities at your fingertips. Use the book as a quick reference when your time or energy is limited. The activities can be used as they are written or you may adapt them to fit your specific patient needs. Increase your scope of ideas and free your time for enjoyable, purposeful, and motivating treatment.

Some great ideas for occupational therapists can be found here.