Top Down Approach

While taking Foundations of Occupational Centered Practice, I have heard many times about the top-down approach. This is a phrase that is very crucial to occupational therapy. It is easy to understand and visualize the meaning of why this is important, but it does not really mean anything until you can see it put into action.

While working on a case study project for spinal cord injuries, I spent some time with a friend who has a SCI and I asked him about his experience with OT. He spent three weeks at the Shepherd's Center and had therapy almost four hours a day, so he has had plenty of experience with OT's.

When we began talking about his time with the OT's he told me one thing he liked the best about his therapist was that there were so many other people at the rehab who had it much worse than him, yet they were all treated the same. Treating on person the same as someone who is less injured or more injured than them is an amazing way to show that person that they are so much more than a disability. As occupational therapist, we will work with people who struggle with coming to terms with their disabilities and we have to be there to remind them that they are still capable human beings. We must first treat the person, then the disability and if we we are treating a person first, wouldn't we treat them all the same?

He went on to tell me about the positivity and helpfulness he experienced at the Shepherd's center. He loved that the therapist would celebrate his victories with him or more than him and were always there to send inspirational vibes. Then after all of that, he told me about how the skills he was taught are the only reason he is able to be a functional personal today. It is important to look at a person with a disability as a person before anything else.  All of the things he told me about reminded me why I want to be occupational therapist and why this is an amazing career.

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