ALOFT- American League of Functional Therapists

Functional Therapy, OT for the 21st Century and Beyond.

We have a great word in Occupation. It has a lot of nuance and meaning for us as Occupational Therapists. We just have a gap between that word and what people understand about that word.

 

We are one of the most user focused health care professions, yet we have this gap in communicating what we can do. That ends up being a big barrier in an environment where the patient knows best and guides her own care. If she doesn’t know about OT how would she ever find out?

Do we have to stop using the O-Word?

 

I like the word “Occupation!”

 

 

 

We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about what we are doing at ALOFT. Please email us at the link below.

 

 

E-mail: RFT@functionaltherapist.org 

    Email contact is preferred (please put “ALOFT” in subject line.) |

Say Occupation to the typical person and they think of...

Jobs...

… or Military Occupation….

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth

Pulpit, 1887

 

**Warning: This post is also on the blog for May 8th, 2009**

My answer to this is an emphatic: NO!

We have a great word, a great concept. The word “Occupation” helps us as OTs expand the thoughts we have about what function can be. It took us years of training to get this insight.

But…

It took us years of training to get this insight!

The other day I was discussing the tremendous experience that going to school to learn Occupational Therapy had been. In many ways we didn’t notice the subtle indoctrination we were undergoing. It was very persuasive because it is an excellent way of looking at the world.

We came out of the experience different people. We share a broadened understanding of humanity and holistic approaches to healthcare. I could never go back to being what I was before.

Now as ALOFT tries to lead us to the opportunity to use the term “Functional Therapy” we have many people asking us if we want to stop using the “O-Word.” How could we stop?

“To expand language is to expand our ability to think.” (David G. Myers, Exploring Psychology.) In this case by seeking to expand the discussion around a novel word the people who were trained in the use of the word gained a level of deeper understanding. These people, the Occupational Therapists, are some of the most interesting, broad minded people I have ever met. It comes partly from the language we learned to describe what it is to live.

So why change and use function?

Most people are not going to go to school for 6 years to get a Masters Degree in Occupational Therapy. It is the rare few who choose this path. Everyone else uses common language to talk about what they want and what they need.

Currently, pharmaceutical companies are marketing directly to the public. Patients go to their doctors asking for “the purple pill” and drugs like “Lipitor”^Ò have more brand recognition than Occupational Therapy. How can this be? We’ve been around longer than Physical Therapy, but we are barely clutching PT’s coat tails in most health care sectors.

I am asking you to look at the word from the point of view of a typical patient. A typical person. What do they think they know about Occupation… what do they know about Function? Maybe we can make the in-roads after we make the first contact. Lets get the patients in the door and then we can help them broaden their understanding of function… and soon after that we can teach them more about Occupation.

We have a great product! Occupational Therapy services are wonderful the world round. But while we are trying to compete we should look at what would help us place ourselves better in the marketplace.   

In University I took a class in the “History of Medicine.” Our professor asked us to look at the funny treatments of the past with a different question “Why would people believe that X was a good idea?” There was a time when bloodletting to let off an imbalance of your humors was state of the art. What questions will we be asking this about in our era.

Another gem from that same class was a different look at the “Hippocratic Oath.” Our professor introduced this as a membership document that essentially guaranteed the long term success of Medicine. If you read the writings of Hippocrates you will find an ancient marketing plan. Look around at its success, almost 2500 years later and it is well established.

It is with the utmost respect for the profession and the professionals who practice OT that we at the American League of Functional Therapists are attempting this change. It is with a desire to help more patients, clients and consumers find purpose in their lives that we seek to expand OT.

Lets work together to see this revival for the gifts of the Occupational Therapists. Please join us in the effort to popularize OT under the term “Functional Therapy.”

 

Sincerely,

 

Ed Kaine

President of the American League of Functional Therapists