While working in an outpatient rehab center, many of the parents expressed one concern. It was something along of the lines of, “My child does great with you here, but I can’t get him to do the same at home.” As an occupational therapist (OT), I understand very well the difference the environment makes in someone’s functional ability.
Now, let’s compare the home environment and the clinic environment.
As moms, we all know, there are always a billion things going on at home. The example above, implies that the child was distracted by what was going on the living room and in the kitchen; and probably many other things too. In the therapy room, there were other distractions too. I mean, a trampoline?!?! How fun is that?!?! Was the child able to work on handwriting with the OT simply because he got all the fun stuff ‘out of his system’? Should the mom at home, just let the child watch TV and cook dinner before doing his homework? Probably not, but we will discuss some possible solutions in another post.
The bigger question in my mind at the time was, what exactly was happening in these children’s home. Did I need to do a home visit, to gain insight into the home environment? How would a parent feel about their child’s OT coming into their home? There had to be a better answer...
By connecting virtually with the families, I was better able to understand what exactly was going on in the home and provide more individualized solutions. Now, we take it a step further by completely eliminating the clinic environment and working directly in the child’s natural environment.
Telehealth sessions have many advantages. Here are some other situations that I encountered while working at the rehab center:
These are just a few examples of the benefits of telehealth. Connect with an OT online today!
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