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UGMC marks World Occupational Therapists Day
Occupational Therapy is a client-centered health profession and the role of these therapists is to support individuals to overcome the effects of decreased functioning caused by illness, aging and/ or accident so that they can carry out their everyday tasks, be it physical, psychological social or environmental. World Occupational Therapists (OT) day is thus a day set aside to create awareness about OT and also to celebrate Occupational Therapists. The day which fell on the 27thof October was on the theme “Belong, Be you”.
Occupational Therapy is a client-centered health profession and the role of these therapists is to support individuals to overcome the effects of decreased functioning caused by illness, aging and/ or accident so that they can carry out their everyday tasks, be it physical, psychological social or environmental. World Occupational Therapists (OT) day is thus a day set aside to create awareness about OT and also to celebrate Occupational Therapists. The day which fell on the 27th of October was on the theme “Belong, Be you”.
At UGMC, the day was marked with a lecture on the topic, “The Role of Occupational Therapy in Healthcare” which was delivered by the Head of the Centre’s Occupational Therapy department, Ms. Mirabel Daisy Gyasi.
Present at the Lecture were the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UGMC, Dr. Darius Osei, Dr. Susan Siabi - Head of Quality Management, UGMC, Mr. Charles Jaween - Head of Dietetics & Food Therapeutics, UGMC, Ms. Barbara Owusu – Hemeng, Head of Client Services & Public Relations.
The CEO of UGMC, Dr. Darius Osei, in his opening remarks, congratulated all Occupational Therapists on the celebration of their special day. He went on to encourage all staff present at the Lecture to position themselves well to play their expected roles to create awareness about Occupational Therapy and the existence of the Occupational Therapy department at UGMC.
Dr. Susan Siabi, Head of Quality Management at UGMC who spoke on behalf of the Director, Medical Affairs, UGMC, informed the audience that OT was a relatively new service in Ghana’s health delivery system and encouraged them to listen attentively to the lecture.
Ms. Gyasi explained to the audience that an occupation “is any meaningful activity that occupies a person’s time”. She further went on to explain occupational therapy as “the aid or assistance given to people with disability to gain back their ability to perform meaningful activities and to restore their independence.”
According to Ms. Gyasi, Occupational Therapists help their patients to restore movement, maintain balance both physically and mentally, promote individual independence and prevent repetitive injury. She indicated that some mental health issues that can be managed using occupational therapy were dyslexia and dyscalculia.
She further said that although Occupational Therapists are sometimes confused with Physiotherapists, the difference between the two professions is that Physiotherapy mostly helps patients to deal with their joint pains and posture problems but Occupational Therapy helps patients not only to deal with pain but also helps to them to get back to doing the things they used to do on a daily basis before they got injured. She explained that this is achieved by preventing repetitive injury as much as possible while gradually restoring the independence of the patient.
There was a question and answer time after the presentation.
The event ended with closing remarks by Dr. Susan Siabi who thanked Ms. Gyasi for an enlightening lecture.
