Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists provide high quality, patient centred services to enable people to participate in their meaningful life roles.

“Occupations” are the things that you need or want to do that give meaning to life. These include looking after yourself, household duties, caring for someone, community involvement, and work and leisure activities.

At Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, occupational therapists focus on how you are functioning and what “occupations” you need to do to return home as soon as possible and as safely as possible.

We assess:

• Physical, cognitive and psychosocial skills, abilities and difficulties.
• The environment where you complete each of your occupations, particularly your home.
• The activities, or occupations, you need to do to get home safely.

From this assessment we provide interventions:

• To problem solve difficulties with your occupations or activities of daily living.
• To increase your safety and independence by teaching compensatory techniques, self-care techniques, or strategies such as providing equipment or modifying the environment.
• To assist you to move from hospital to home safely.

The Occupational Therapy Department at Sir Charles Gairdner has a team of more than 70 occupational therapists, allied health assistants, tradesmen and patient appliance center staff. The occupational therapists have a wide range of advanced clinical and research expertise.

We care for:

Acute inpatients

Acute hospital occupational therapists work as part of the multi-disciplinary team to support a safe and timely discharge from hospital. These areas include:

• Emergency Department (Care Coordination Team)
• Medical Admissions Unit
• Acute care - General Medical, General Surgical, Oncology, Neurosurgery, etc.
• Acute Care of the Elderly
• Acute Stroke Unit
• Delirium Care Unit

Inpatient Rehabilitation

Occupational therapists in the sub-acute rehabilitation setting work with patients who require more time to recover from (or adapt to) injury or illness including in:

• Geriatric Evaluation Management (GEM) Unit

Outpatient Occupational Therapy

Outpatient occupational therapy is for patients referred from a clinical service within Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. It includes task specific retraining and strategies to assist you to participate in occupations that are important in your life. Various treatment modalities are used depending on the clinical area:

• Hand and Upper Limb Clinic
• Orthopaedics Pre-admission Clinic
• Cancer Centre
• Lymphedema
• Home visiting and domiciliary care

People in the community

When referred into a specialist program such as:

• Community Aids and Equipment Program

For referrals to Community Aids and Equipment Program (CAEP) please see criteria, catchment and referral information on the CAEP website (external site)