Book Description

Learn how occupational therapists with requisite knowledge, skills, and creativity can make significant contributions to injury and accident prevention, to health child and adolescent development, to healthy adult adaptation and aging, and to health promotion in many areas of life. In response to the call for occupational therapists to extend their services to new areas of practice, this timely book addresses some of the topics associated with developing and implementing preventive and health promotion services. Leading authorities examine the costs and economic factors associated with health care, discuss marketing strategies for occupational therapy services, make recommendations to facilitate development of occupational therapy services in wellness and health promotion, and highlight new models of practice, including one that extends traditional mental health occupational therapy services from the hospital into the community and another that creates new forms of services for health promotion and injury prevention in an industrial setting. An annotated bibliography includes reviews and efficacy studies exploring the potential benefits of exercise on physical and mental health. Although occupational therapists have a unique body of knowledge and skills that generally address the occupational, emotional, social, intellectual, and physical dimensions of their patients, the editors and contributing authors to Occupational Therapy: Program Development for Health Promotion and Preventive Services advocate the importance of acquiring additional information--and even advanced education--before assuming responsibility for preventive or health promotion programs.