What is the most important thing to keep in mind during a therapy session with a patient? That’s right. The most important thing is the patient.

Speaking as an occupational therapist, we’re always focused on a holistic approach to patient care. Providing treatment interventions that encompass meaningful participation in all levels of daily living is at the heart of everything we do. So when we’re already focusing on the patient, and we’ve been trained to provide quality care, what is the next step we can take to improve our efforts? How do we go above and beyond and make sure our patients receive not only quality patient care, but our thoughtful attention and customized approach for the best outcomes?

We first identify functional limitations and then address safety, environmental factors, adaptations and compensatory techniques, as well as education to the patient, family and caregiver. Functional limitations can be very low-level, such as the ability to perform dressing skills to more complex skills, such as medication management and ability to respond to an emergency. Activities can be graded from a basic seated position to standing and completing dynamic balance activities. When we incorporate components of therapeutic exercise for strengthening, ADL retraining with adaptive equipment instruction, and neuro re-education tasks, such as balance and functional mobility, we quickly fill up our scheduled therapy time.

Utilizing these strategies will lend to meeting your productivity goals, but more importantly they ensure your patient is getting as much value from their appointment as you can give–and each activity is focused on making them better.