Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital creates occupational therapy awareness
The public was educated on occupational therapy and how they can identify and treat mental health disorders among others.
Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital recently hosted an Occupational Therapy Awareness Campaign to showcase the services rendered by such experts within the West Rand District.
The event was organised by health professionals around the district and aimed at engaging the community in occupational therapy and the different service packages available at clinics and hospitals.
According to the hospital’s communication officer, Puseletso Mabidikame, occupational therapy is a client-centred healthcare profession that promotes the health and well-being of people through engaging in activities that make up occupations that are purposeful and meaningful.
“This includes individual and group therapy for a variety of conditions, both physical and mental. Additionally, occupational therapy is involved in issuing assistive devices such as wheelchairs, sensory integration, vocational rehabilitation and caregiver education.”
Puseletso added during this event, the information was shared with ease and direct contact between the community and the occupational therapy team.
“Each stall represented a different component of posters, pamphlets, end-products from therapy, and verbal presentations discussing mental health including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism, vocational rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation and spinal rehabilitation. Screening was also conducted for depression, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance use using the relevant screening tool. For the clinics, the focus was on mental health, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and autism in children and adults. They also screened people for depression and substance usage.
“The focus was to educate people on mental health issues, more especially the adults for them to understand it better, to enable them to know what mental health in children is, how to recognise it, how to refer them and how to deal with the stigma in the community.”
Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital, for example, focused on prevocational rehabilitation programmes for in-patients. This included income-generating projects such as Industrial Therapy, which comprises car washing, shoe repairs, gardening, sewing and more.
Puseletso further explained several projects available.
“The Thrift Shop project involves mental health care users developing customer service skills and executive functioning skills such as planning, organising, and pricing of items. The Seedling Project involves the planting, watering and growing of seedlings which can be purchased to start one’s garden – this creates a sense of responsibility and promotes de-institutionalisation. Other projects presented included cable clips, tekkie wash and recycling.”
People were also educated about strokes.
“They were taught adaptive ways of doing activities with one side of the body. They also educated people on how to identify a stroke and the risk factors. Leratong Hospital provided education on assistive devices which are given to patients with limited function to promote independent functioning following an injury to make their work easy.”
In addition, Dr Yusuf Dadoo Hospital aimed to create awareness of spinal cord injuries.
“They were educating on how to facilitate a transfer from a wheelchair to another surface and taught the community pressure relief strategies.”
Shane Maloi, an intern at Yusuf Dadoo added this experience changed his perspective more, especially after receiving the opportunity to experience mental health screening and the knowledge of the projects done at Sterkfontein Hospital.
Maloi also expressed that she respects both the mental health care users and the disabled as she now knows how difficult it is to move from the wheelchair to the toilet seat and cope.
