Occupational Therapy Services
Occupational Therapy Services
YEG Psychology is pleased to offer Occupational Therapy services in conjunction with our psychological services. Our Occupational Therapists have varied experiences working in community and rehabilitation environments, including specializing in medical-legal work in collaboration with various insurance companies. Occupational Therapists are regulated healthcare professionals who work with individuals who are having difficulty engaging in activities that are meaningful to them and essential to functioning in a manner that allows them to engage fully in life, including in work.
What is Occupational Therapy?
Occupational Therapy treats an individual within the framework of who they are as a person, their occupations, and their environment. The definition of “occupation” to an Occupational Therapist goes beyond the traditional sense of the word “occupation”. It includes activities that are meaningful and purposeful to an individual, which can vary from person to person. For example, it can mean how we take care of ourselves, participate in leisure activities, and even how we interact with those around us in our everyday interactions and our community at large.
Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.
~ Paula Coelho
What can Occupational Therapy help with?
Currently, we offer Occupational Therapy services to support psychosocial functioning and return-to-work. Our treatment interventions focus on decreasing your presenting symptomology that is impacting your ability to engage in everyday activities of living.
- Anxiety
- Burnout
- Chronic fatigue
- Depression
- Motor Vehicle Collisions
- Pain Management
- Phobias
- Return-to-work
- Sleep
- Social Isolation
- Trauma
What does Occupational Therapy services look like?
- Services are provided in-office, in the community, and/or virtually.
- Occupational Therapy sessions can work in conjunction with psychological counselling and will focus on improving overall functioning.
Individual sessions can vary from 60-minutes to 120-minutes. - Cost per hour is $150.00 with many insurance companies offering the ability to direct bill.
Current Occupational Therapy Services include:
- Behavioural activation interventions when an individual is on leave from work and/or experiencing mental health challenges like depression, which can make life feel heavy and motivation low. Behavioural activation interventions use strategies to help clients get moving again and regain their motivation (e.g., re-engagement in typical daily routines and habit formation).
- Activity Analysis (e.g., recreate structure and balance in daily living activities).
- Goal setting and execution (e.g., when there is a loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities).
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Interventions for depression and anxiety.
- Sleep hygiene and fatigue management strategies.
- Strategies to manage burnout, including assertiveness training and pacing.
- Cognitive strategies to assist with difficulties with memory and/or attention.
- Provision of Occupational Therapy guided/supported in vivo exposure therapy as per the Prolonged Exposure (PE) Therapy protocol:
- Assist the psychologist in providing stabilization of emotional and physiological arousal the client is experiencing through the teaching of different strategies for emotional regulation to manage autonomic arousal.
- Biofeedback, which consists of heartrate monitoring to manage symptoms of hyperarousal of the sympathetic nervous system.
- Social/functional, trauma-related, and/or work-related in vivo exposure therapy sessions to decrease avoidance, anxiety, and depression related symptomology.
- Strategies for grounding to manage mental health, including introducing adaptive and healthy coping strategies to maintain work-life balance.
- Psychosocial assessment of one’s ability to return-to-work, including an individual’s readiness to return to work when they have been off for an extended period.
- Collaboration with different reintegration services for the first responder population to assist with returning to work in a safe and psychologically sustainable way.
- Creation and follow-through of return-to-work plans.
- Pain Management strategies (e.g., principles of energy conservation).
- Collaboration with other healthcare providers that are part of the client’s treatment.
- Case Management.
- Assisting clients in accessing community resources.
