Soft Tissue Occupational Therapy

Soft tissue Occupational Therapy (OT) is a health profession that focuses on the improvement of functional abilities such as sports and recreation, work and home related life.

There are 3 levels of care that are offered, these are:

  1. Prevention of injury
  2. Rehabilitation from injury
  3. Sporting/work/home related performance enhancement

As you can appreciate OT involves a great deal of health education when attempting to help sports athletes and employees prevent injuries from happening in the first place as well improving their sporting performance on the court.

In one study an emphasis was placed on the importance of balance control, specifically the strong correlation between balance control and enhanced athletic performance and negatively association with lower limb injuries. Proprioception exercises plays an essential role in balance control and ankle proprioception is the most important. These balance control mechanisms are integrated with vision in the central nervous system. (Biomed Res Int 2015:25-28).

In a second study prevention of lower limb injury in Basketball was studied. Specifically the effectiveness of current lower extremity injury programs was analysed. The following injury categories were included:

  1. general lower extremity injuries,
  2. ankle sprains
  3. anterior cruciate ligament tears (ACL)

These showed that these programs can reduce lower limb injuries in Basketball athletes as well as helping the basketball players become more proficient at their sport.

Office workers are also at risk of injuries, the neck and shoulders are the most susceptible areas for developing musculoskeletal symptoms among computer users. In this research study pain in the neck was experienced by 71.67% of respondents and 48.33% of the participants had experienced shoulder pain during work hours (Shabbir M et al. 2016).

The enhancement of sporting, work related productivity and home related independence are the 3 main areas of concern for Soft tissue OT’s. These functional markers are used to drive pre-hab, rehab and performance enhancement intervention.

Soft tissue OT’s often work closely with Chiropractors and together can positively impact upon patients with acute or chronic injuries or prevent injuries in the first place. They can help staff with improved posture when doing a wide variety of jobs. Or enhance sporting performance through stronger muscular skeletal systems.

Finally, OT’s can work with many professions at their workplace to conduct complimentary screens aimed at identifying risk of injury, if you would like our OT to conduct screens at your workplace please give us a call on 93211964 or Morteza@perthwellness.com and ask for Morty Razavi.

References

  1. Han J et al (2015) The role of ankle proprioception for balance control in relation to sports performance and injury. Biomedical Resources International, 15(2)80-84
  1. Taylor et.al (2015) Prevention of Lower Extremity Injuries in Basketball: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis. Sports Health, 7(5):392-8
  1. Shabbir M et al, (2016) Frequency of neck and shoulder pain and use of adjustable computer workstation among bankers.Mar-Apr;32(2):423-6