They provide interventions for patients to participate in their usual roles and environment in personal care, domestic, community, vocational and avocational activity and may include:

• Education regarding precautions, anatomy, and biomechanics relevant to their condition
• Education regarding pacing and self-monitoring in returning to daily occupations
• Education regarding postural awareness, pain management, and manual handling techniques in daily occupations
• Education and trial of adaptive equipment and compensatory techniques to increase independence
• Equipment prescription, referral for support services and modification of home or work environmental factors as required
• Facilitating return to occupation through graded conditioning of affected limbs, standing and activity tolerance activities, functional mobility retraining and work hardening
• Community assessment and retraining (such as shopping, banking, money handling, outdoor mobility, and public transport usage).

Occupational therapy aims to maximise patients’ independence, confidence and safety in daily occupations with assessment and graded intervention addressing physical, cognitive, environmental, psychosocial and cultural factors as required.

Both an occupational therapist (OT) and physiotherapist are registered health professionals that require a university degree. In general, an occupational therapist (OT) tends to focus on evaluating and improving a person’s functional ability to perform their occupations or activities of daily living while a physiotherapist tends to be more focused on evaluating and diagnosing movement dysfunctions as well as treating a person’s injury itself. An OT may focus on:

• Increasing a person’s independence with activities of daily living such as showering, dressing or preparing meals
• Restoring basic functions such as holding a spoon, using a comb, or going to the bathroom

A Physio may focus on: 

• Assessing injuries or disabilities that are limiting patients’ movements or overall health
• Using exercises, massage and other techniques to relieve pain and improve a person’s mobility and muscle strength
• Promoting a personalised health and wellness program aimed at an active lifestyle that prevents injuries or the development of chronic health conditions

In Australia, a referral is not required to be able to see an allied health professional such as an occupational therapist, although it is often helpful for you to bring as much information about your health history as well as any specific medical or surgical details that relate to your reason for seeing an OT. There are a few exceptions to this, where you will need to obtain a referral from your GP prior to attending our clinic. This includes:

• Workers Compensation Claims
• CTP (Third Party) Road Accident Claims
• Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) Claims
• Medicare Claims (e.g. Chronic Disease Management referral)