Occupational therapy approaches to muscle reeducation tend to differ somewhat from a physical therapy approaches to the same science.
Universal Home Care clinicians understand the difference and help patients with both types of rehabilitation. The concept of muscle reeducation is an important one, no matter where the focus on the body may be.
Occupational therapy tends to focus on the activities of daily living and especially on the activities and functions of the arms and hands. Therapy that focuses on the lower extremities falls more often into the realm of physical therapy.
In either case, the Universal Home Care clinicians will make it their goal to help the patient's muscles learn all over again how to function when completing daily tasks. This type of therapy looks at teaching people how to feed themselves, how to dress themselves, and how to go about all of the little tasks that make up a person's day to day life.
Occupational therapists may work with people that have lost sensation, coordination or strength in their hands due to neurological conditions such as brain injury, stroke or multiple sclerosis. They also work with patients who suffer from physical conditions, like arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, which make it difficult to use the hands as they could once be used.
Muscle reeducation is about convincing the brain and the hand that they know how to work in unison to complete certain tasks. Through special exercises, the body can be trained and strengthened in some cases to regain the ability, or at least some of the ability, to do things that had been lost. Muscle reeducation helps awaken dormant muscles and to start them building in strength and mobility again. The goal is to continually increase strength and range of motion over time.
