>> Erika Kemp: How many of you have ever treated clients in the water? How many of you work in the field of pediatrics? How many of those are school-based practitioners? Anyone doing early intervention? Outpatient clinic, or outpatient hospital-based? And in-patient hospital? Hopefully I will touch on all of those settings for you today.
Learning Objectives
- Identify how occupational therapists can provide a unique occupation-based prospective to swimming and other aquatic activities.
- List at least two physical properties of water that provide a therapeutic medium for treatment.
- Translate land based goals and activities to the water.
- Identify at least one other way to use water in a land-based treatment
Aquatic Therapy
When you think aquatic therapy, occupational therapy is not the first discipline to jump to mind. In fact, it is really quite intimidating for most occupational therapy practitioners. Some of the many disciplines you might think of are: aquatic fitness professionals, physical therapists, athletic trainers, personal trainers, recreational therapists, and swim coaches. All of these professionals and disciplines have many different goals in mind. However, usually they are looking at increasing overall fitness, looking at rehabbing a specific joint or muscle or injury, or they may be working with competitive swimmers or runners.
