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Occupational therapy

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Occupational therapy

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Occupational therapy

Occupational therapy (OT), also known as ergotherapy, is a healthcare profession. Ergotherapy is derived from the Greek ergon which is allied to work, to act and to be active. Occupational therapy is based on the assumption that engaging in meaningful activities, also referred to as occupations, is a basic human need and that purposeful activity has a health-promoting and therapeutic effect. Occupational science, the study of humans as 'doers' or 'occupational beings', was developed by inter-disciplinary scholars, including occupational therapists, in the 1980s.

The World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT) defines occupational therapy as "a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through occupation. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement".

Occupational therapy is an allied health profession. In England, allied health professions (AHPs) are the third largest clinical workforce in health and care. Fifteen professions, with 352,593 registrants, are regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council in the United Kingdom.

The earliest evidence of using occupations as a method of therapy can be found in ancient times. In c. 100 BCE, Greek physician Asclepiades treated patients with a mental illness humanely using therapeutic baths, massage, exercise, and music. Later, the Roman Celsus prescribed music, travel, conversation and exercise to his patients. However, by medieval times the use of these interventions with people with mental illness was rare, if not nonexistent.

In late 18th-century Europe, doctors such as Philippe Pinel and Johann Christian Reil reformed the mental asylum system. Their institutions used rigorous work and leisure activities. This became part of what was known as moral treatment. Although it was thriving in Europe, interest in the reform movement fluctuated in the United States throughout the 19th century.[citation needed]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the establishment of public health measures to control infectious diseases included the building of fever hospitals. Patients with tuberculosis were recommended to have a regime of prolonged bed rest followed by a gradual increase in exercise.

This was a time in which the rising incidence of disability related to industrial accidents, tuberculosis, and mental illness brought about an increasing social awareness of the issues involved.[citation needed]

The Arts and Crafts movement that took place between 1860 and 1910 also impacted occupational therapy. The movement emerged against the monotony and lost autonomy of factory work in the developed world. Arts and crafts were used to promote learning through doing, provided a creative outlet, and served as a way to avoid boredom during long hospital stays.

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