Wedge Gardens partners with Wits OT students
Through a process of interviews and comprehensive assessments, intervention is directed at treating the client to promote rejuvenated, healthy lifestyles and to provide learning opportunities to attain skills for daily living.
Ms Adel Grobbelaar the head of Rand Aid Association’s Wedge Garden Treatment Centre, believes that occupational therapy should really be called functional therapy.
According to her, the goal of occupational therapy is to make sure an individual is as functional as possible to engage as fully as possible in their lives.
“Occupational therapists believe in using meaningful activities as a therapeutic tool to treat their client’s condition and the symptoms, which affect the functioning of the client in his or her daily life,” she said.
Working closely with final year occupational therapy students of the University of the Witwatersrand, Wedge Gardens offers individualised occupational therapy services to its patients.
“Our holistic approach means that client’s cases are handled in detail in order to tailor therapy to their unique life story,” said Ms Grobbelaar.
Through a process of interviews and comprehensive assessments, intervention is directed at treating the client to promote rejuvenated, healthy lifestyles and to provide learning opportunities to attain skills for daily living. Insight sessions, which assist the client in understanding an addiction, are also held and clients are taught the coping skills needed to master their addiction.
“The skills needed to perform daily living tasks are intricately graded in order to bridge the gap between current dysfunction and maximum function possible for the client. This includes the ability to maintain a substance-free lifestyle by providing the client with coping skills to fulfil life roles,” said Ms Grobbelaar.
Ms Elfie du Toit, the full-time occupational therapist at Wedge Gardens, together with the final year students of the University of the Witwatersrand, provide both individual and group interventions for clients.
People with substance abuse problems usually neglect different aspects in their life, as substances become their ultimate pursuit. Both group and individual treatment assists clients to develop insights into their addiction and change the negative behaviour related to it.
“Appropriate life skills such as assertiveness training, which is used to develop healthy social relationship skills, are practised; as well as assisting the client in restructuring the way he spends his free time in favour of fun, yet constructive, leisure activities. Occupational therapists assist clients who have the goal of participating in the working world by focusing on work readiness, such as having basic work ethics as well as the necessary skills in order to hold down a job,” she said.
Occupational therapists develop a vast range of the skills a person requires to live, by holistically treating the individual in order to meet the demands placed on them within their context.
For more information, contact the Wedge Gardens Treatment Centre on 011 430-0320.
Residents can also visit Wedge Gardens on Facebook at www.facebook.com/WedgeGardensTreatmentCentre or follow them on Twitter @WedgeGardens
