Question

discuss communication among occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy.

Answer 1

Ans) Occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy are often collectively referred to as the “rehabilitation therapy team.”

- OTs are health professionals who work with people who’ve had illnesses, injuries, and disabilities that prevent them from participating in their normal daily activities.

- physical therapy is the treatment of the effects of disease, injury, and disability by using exercise, manual therapy, education, and therapeutic activity. PTs are considered a conservative care option because they use such techniques to get results, rather than relying on medications or surgery.

- A speech-language pathologist’s goal is to improve a patient’s ability to communicate and/or swallow. SLPs can work on many aspects of communication with patients, including speech production, fluency (stuttering), language, cognition, voice, resonance, and hearing. Swallowing evaluation and treatment can also include feeding.

- Example of communication among occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy:

Let’s consider the case of a young man who has chronic high blood pressure and then has a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), which is commonly referred to as a stroke. A stroke is sometimes informally called a “brain attack” because it involves the sudden deprivation of oxygen to the brain. This leads to areas of the brain either temporarily or permanently losing function.

So, let’s look at how each therapy discipline will treat the man who has a stroke.

An occupational therapist focuses primarily on how this patient (whom an OT will often refer to as a client) is able to function in his daily roles, based on the damage to various parts of his brain.

Can this man cook meals for his young daughter?

If not, an OT will provide coaching, exercises, and adaptive equipment to help the man return to cooking the meals he and his family love.

A physical therapist also looks at that same young man and wonders how he is functioning from a movement standpoint.

Can the patient safely walk 50 feet so he can care for his daughter while his wife is at work?

If not, a PT will provide exercises, assistive device (cane, walker, etc.) training, and manual therapy to help the patient regain the ability to walk as independently as possible.

As you can see, there is already some overlap in function. After all, that patient or client will need to walk to and from the pantry to get the supplies for cooking, too!

If the patient needs to stand up independently to cook, he will need strength and balance in his legs. That means both OTs and PTs might be working on similar goals of standing tolerance, which will help him be able to be more independent. But the PT looks at walking independently as the end goal, while the OT looks at cooking meals as part of a normal daily life as the end goal.

A speech-language pathologist also looks at this same patient from a functional standpoint, with the emphasis being on communication and swallowing. In addition, the SLP will consider the patient’s cognition. In fact, there’s a big overlap between SLPs and OTs, especially in settings like acute care, inpatient rehab, and outpatient.

Can the patient speak to his wife without struggling to find the right words (this is called aphasia)? And can this patient move his mouth, jaw, and tongue to speak without struggling to articulate (this is called dysarthria)?

If not, the SLP might work with this patient to improve his ability to communicate so that his wife can purchase the foods that he wants for dinner.