Adaptive Equipment

An occupational therapist can offer advice and education surrounding adaptive equipment that may help your child improve their function. The purpose of adaptive equipment is to enable your child to function in daily occupations independently. Daily occupations is a term used to describe the main activities children complete on a regular basis, these activities provide meaning and happiness to a child's life.

Some Examples include:

• Getting dressed
• Tying shoelaces
• Playing with building block style games
• Moving around the school/home environment
• Playing in the playground
• Eating

As with all our treatments, we enable children to complete occupations, feel more empowered, independent and increase their overall happiness. The theory behind providing adaptive equipment to children is that this equipment would act as a compensatory method to overcome the difficulties the child is experiencing.

Rather than aiming to restore active function in both the muscles and the mind, the adaptive aids and equipment approach would provide instant and lasting results of improved function. The adaptive equipment compensatory approach can be used across all conditions, ages and abilities. This leads it to being a common approach taken by nearly all occupational therapists, both private and in the NHS.

However as with anything, there are advantages and disadvantages to all approaches to therapy and this is no different, the disadvantages of taking a purely compensatory approach is that the child will not recover any lost muscle tone, strength or control through equipment. In most cases our therapists will use their clinical judgement and combine various approaches to ensure the best level of care for your child.

Common Adaptive equipment used in paediatric Occupational Therapy

• Adaptive cutlery
• Seating adaptations
• Pencil grips
• Adaptive pens
• Splints
• Writing boards
• Adaptive eating aids
• Dressing aids
• Grip strength aids

The list above is not a conclusive list of all adaptive equipment available on the market, but rather a summary of the ones that appear to be used most during therapy. As an occupational therapist, we will provide you with advice and support on the most suitable adaptive aid available depending upon the goal set during therapy. We can also offer alternative suggestions and provide you with options on where to purchase such objects. Treatment sessions will be continued to ensure any purchased equipment is being used correctly and as safely as possible.

Summary

In summary an occupational therapist can offer advice and education surrounding adaptive equipment that may help your child improve their function. The purpose of adaptive equipment is to enable your child to function in daily occupations independently. An adaptive aid is a term used to describe modified objects in order to enhance the person�s ability to complete daily activities. Some of the difficulties we help with are getting dressed, eating and writing. If your child is struggling in any of these or other areas and you would like some help, please email office@otforkids.co.uk or call us on 0330 223 0888