If you or someone close to you did not need the assistance of an occupational therapist, it’s likely you don’t know exactly what we do.
Many people believe that we play with our clients or teach and then do arts and crafts. Some believe occupational therapy is physical therapy for the hands. These are not the case.
This is a link to an explanatory video I like; it shows how diverse our profession is. Occupational therapists have a collective language and often ask clients, “What matters to you? What would you need or like to do? How can we assist?” If you are not able to talk or comunicate, we look for someone who can speak in your behalf. We ask lots of questions and together we seek to find solutions to your daily challenges. We assess, measure, and scientifically evaluate your performance or progress, so you can participate in daily life as independently as possible.
With that out of the way, I can admit that we do play! We all do, all the time. Every experienced therapist can tell you that without the client’s motivation to change and their inner drive, there would be no therapeutic gain. At least not as much as it could have been if the client was fully involved in setting their own goals, designing their own therapeutic journey, and monitoring their own progress. Although therapists are the facilitators of change, we are there to provide guidance of the relevant context and challenges. How can any client become involved in their own design? According to my approach, this is our top mission as clinicians: to personalize each client’s therapeutic experience.
How can the client, any client, become that involved designer?
This, in my approach, is our top mission as clinicians - to personalize the therapeutic experience.
Welcome onboard the world of "serious games".
While game-like strategies have been presented in the literature for years, serious games entail an emerging concept within rehabilitation sciences. Either digital or not, through “gamification” - the harvesting of intrinsic motivational qualities embedded in game elements and mechanics (such as branching choices, feedback on performance, progress display, engagement, and much more) - we can make a change in people's non-game daily life. I learned that my client-centered treatment training could also be viewed from the lens of serious games. This opened my mind to a wealth of possibilities. I could use the accumulated knowledge from positive psychology, pedagogy, and even business and marketing to facilitate a guided functional therapy. For a full list of gamification elements that I adopted, you can look at the collection in these links: (Marczewski, 2017; Jackson, 2017; Giunti, et al., 2018; Jaccard et al., 2021).
Refrences
Giunti, G., Mylonopoulou, V., & Rivera Romero, O. (2018). More Stamina, a Gamified Health and UHealth, 6(3), e51. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.9437
Jaccard, D., Suppan, L., Sanchez, E., Huguenin, A., Laurent, M., Knobel, S., ... & Nyffeler, T. (2021). JMIR Serious Games. change, 9(3).
Jackson, M. (2017). Gamification Elements to Use for Learning. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/9779/3a0c28760731c611774fdf56fd51d3d04e23.pdf
Marczewski, A. (2015). Even Ninja Monkeys like to play. In CreateSpace Indep. Publish Platform, Charleston, Chapter User Types. https://www.gamified.uk/even-ninja-monkeys-like-to-play/