OTs go to war

October 3, 2012
by Kendra

What are OS/OT?

I’ve been thinking about the roots of occupational therapy lately. In my last post I talked about the Mental Hygiene movement and how OTs helped people with mental illness. Another area of practice critical to our development as a field was helping wound warriors and returning vets get back to life after WWII.

In WWII huge advances were made in rehabilitative care, mainly due to the fact that the nation was not prepared to treat all of the wounded veterans and people had to quickly and creatively develop methods to help our soldiers find jobs and assimilate back into their role as husband, son, and brother. OTs were perfectly placed to use occupation to help veterans returning home.

Flash forward to today and one would think OTs would, yet again, be at the forefront of care for our warriors, but in an information session held for prospective OTs, we had a soldier wanting to become an OT who said than in her two tours of Iraq and Afghanistan she met only one occupational therapist. ONLY ONE!

But we are making baby steps. There is a program offered for wounded warriors in LA in which they deal with PTSD in a supportive community environment via ocean therapy. Guess who started it, a USC OT grad.

And we need more OTs getting in there not just when the soldiers return home but when they return from battle. Think of the amazing work OTs could do with soldiers IN Iraq and IN Afghanistan. We could lead groups for people to explore their war experience while performing a calming occupation like playing an instrument or painting a canvas. OTs could be a part of nation building projects and work with local people to build gardens, homes, and schools. One of my favorite things about occupational therapy is that we can work anywhere with every population, we just have to fill the gap with occupation!

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