Russell Hansen Jr., age 13, of Springfield, I11., for his question:
WHAT EXACTLY IS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY?
Occupational therapy is a type of treatment prescribed by doctors for people who are physically or mentally disabled. It includes interesting occupations and pastimes that help patients overcome or reduce their handicaps.
A patient with an artificial leg may be taught to dance and thus gain confidence in his ability to live a normal life. A blind person learns to travel, clothe, feed and care for himself and thus can live a useful life.
Sometimes patients must relearn such basic skills of everyday living as dressing, writing or eating. Occupational therapy is often decribed as "curing by doing," because the patient himself must carry out the activities.
Rehabilitation of the sick and injured often includes both occupational therapy and physical therapy. Therapists use both kinds of treatment to help the physically disabled.
Occupational therapy has two chief goals: to help a patient use his body more adequately after an injury or illness and to help a person overcome emotional problems.
Helping the body is called physical restoration or functional therapy. Doctors prescribe special treatments for patients with weak muscles or stuff joints. They help patients learn how to use new muscles to do the work when part of the body is permanently paralyzed, or when a patient must adjust to using an artificial limb.
Helping the mind is called psychological therapy. Therapists use this technique to help solve the emotional problems of those who are physically or mentally ill.
Psychological therapy plays a vital part in helping patients with permanent disabilities such as blindness or the loss of a limb. The patient learns that he can do things in spite of his handicap. Each new thing the patient learns to do on his own helps him develop confidence in himself.
The idea of occupational therapy goes back to A.D. 172 when the great Greek physician named Galen said: "Employment is nature's best medicine and it is essential to human happiness."
During the late 1700s, doctors in several countries used occupational therapy in treating mentally ill patients. These doctors included Philippe Pinel in France, Johann Christian Reil in Germany and Benjamin Rush in the United States.
In 1798, the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane in Philadelphia was teaching patients carpentry, shoe repairing, needlework and music.
The need to help disabled veterans of World War I and II stimulated the growth of occupational therapy.
Modern occupational therapy actually developed from a nursing course in "Individual Occupations." This course was first offered to student nurses in 1906 by a Boston nurse named Susan Tracy.
The term "occupational therapy" was first used in 1914 by an architect from Clifton Springs, N.Y., named George Barton. Barton had been treated by this method.