INTERVENTIONS
Action Over Inertia
Action Over Inertia (AOI), an intervention approach based on the framework of recovery, provides worksheets specifically designed to “address the activity health needs of individuals with mental illness who experience disengagement from activity patterns associated with health and well-being” (Krupa et al., 2010, p.3). AOI was introduced to me in OT 882 in first semester. This assessment addresses risks to health and well-being by examining a client's time-use patterns and the nature and level of engagement in occupations. It provides the OT with insight into how the client spends their time and whether or not they are experiencing any occupational imbalance in their self-care, productivity, and leisure activities. Addressing areas of occupational imbalance and disengagement would assist in goal setting with clients to increase the amount of time spent in meaningful activities to improve health and well-being. I particularly like the AOI worksheet that includes a visual representation of the bar graph as this would be helpful in allowing clients to see how they are using their time, allowing them to better understand their occupational imbalance, which may facilitate changes in time-use. Furthermore, this assessment is impactful because it draws to enable engagement in meaningful activities for people with severe mental illness.
Krupa, T., Almas, A., Bransfield, M., Chen, S. P., Edgelow, M., Jackson, J., ... & Radloff-Gabriel, D. (2010). Action over inertia: Addressing the activity-health needs of individuals with serious mental illness. CAOT Publications ACE.
Social Skills Training
Social skills training (SST) is an intervention that uses modelling and role-play to teach client skills that they have either lost or never obtained in the first place. These skills are all social in nature, and usually affect the client's roles and relationships in everyday life. Sessions of SST are focused around a particularly difficult area of a client or a group of clients. The therapist will use role-play to demonstrate how to respond in social situations, and the clients will practice the learned skill. In most cases the acquisition of the skill allows the client to maintain or acquire desired roles in their life. An important aspect of SST is homework. After a session, the therapist gives the client homework so that they can practice the skill in a natural context.
SST is an occupation as ends approach, meaning that the act of completing SST is not an occupation, but the outcome should be either greater occupational experience, engagement or performance. For many, the skills taught in SST might seem like common sense, and for that reason are often overlooked or believed not to be an appropriate point of intervention. The importance of social skills is enormous in our society, and as such deficits in social skills can affect nearly every facet of a clients life.
By having SST as a tool in my toolbox, I ensure that I am prepared to help my clients in a safe setting so that they can fulfill the roles they desire in their everyday lives.
Vocaltional Rehabiliation
Restoring the ability to work is a key element in the rehabilitation of adult clients. The primary goal of occupational therapy (OT), as part of the rehabilitation program, is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life including the ability to work. Assisting patients to return to their job is clearly an important part of the therapeutic effort of occupational therapists, the OT process is based on initial and repeated assessments in individual patients. Vocational rehabilitation reflects a wide variety of interventions, including meaningful occupations through voluntary work, sheltered work, supported employment and open employment opportunities. As a therapeutic intervention, return to work includes also patients who are assisted by their (occupational) therapists to regain access to the (premorbid) type of work. Vocational rehabilitation is one of the methods that can be put to use by OT on behalf of reaching the patients goals when returning to the worker.