RECREATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL THERAPY

• Therapeutic Recreation
• The Recreational Therapy Process
• Productivity
• The Vocational Rehabilitation Process

THERAPEUTIC RECREATION

     Therapeutic recreation services are essential to the patient with SCI for three important reasons:

• A method of treatment to improve your physical, psychological, social, and emotional well-being, such as conducting a volleyball activity to improve balance
• A method of education to increase your knowledge of and successfully provide for your leisure activities, which are an integral part of your rehabilitation and social reintegration
• Recreational participation, which is necessary for a normalized, balanced lifestyle for all people, and essential as a means of self-expression, release, and socialization for the people with SCI.

     Like all other rehabilitation therapies, therapeutic recreation helps you achieve your highest possible level of independence and quality of life.

THE RECREATIONAL THERAPY PROCESS

Recreation Assessment

The recreational therapy process begins with an individual assessment of your:

• Strengths, interests, and values
• Previous leisure activities and expectations
• Available resources in your home and community
• Social needs and relationships
• Economic and other potential problem areas in your participating in recreational and leisure activities, and
• Life-style adjustments necessary for healthy leisure functioning.

     Based on the assessment, you and the recreational therapist plan a program that builds on your abilities and either corrects problem areas or develops ways of coping with them. Therapeutic recreation involves several components in a continuum of developmental services.

Individual Treatment

     Activities of interest to you are analyzed and broken down into components. The components are examined to determine how the activity would contribute to your treatment goals. And modifications in the activity are made to better support your physical, cognitive, and social goals - such as applying velcro to strengthen your grip or installing battery-operated switches

Group Programs in the Hospital and Community

     Skills, such as dealing effectively in variable real-life situations, are learned and applied through enjoyable activities in a supportive, realistic environment - such as arts and crafts, games, shopping, movies, and sightseeing tours

Interdisciplinary Programs

     Recreation, occupational, and physical therapists, together with nurses, staff interdisciplinary groups where goals for your successful reintegration into the community are planned by you, participated in, and processed to identify problem areas and successes - such as planning for, going to, and evaluating a trip to a museum.

Wheelchair Sports

     Wheelchair sports, such as basketball, bowling, swimming, archery, table tennis, softball, etc. are taught and promoted.

Outpatient Therapeutic Recreation Services

     Ongoing therapeutic recreation services to eliminate barriers to your participating in community recreation activities and self-satisfying leisure activities which enable you to develop social skills within a group structure, form new relationships with peers, and continue to improve your self-confidence and rehabilitation skills.

Discharge Planning

     Agencies and services in the community are identified that can support your ongoing needs for recreational and leisure activities - such as special recreation associations, wheelchair sports organizations, accessible outdoor programs and facilities, continuing education programs, national support organizations, independent living centers, volunteer opportunities, etc.

PRODUCTIVITY

    After you have addressed your medical needs, by learning the activities of daily living and mobility skills to prevent medical complications, and returned to a stable living environment with the necessary social skills and home modifications, your third and final goal to leading a successful life with SCI is returning to or achieving a new level of 'productivity'. Productivity provides the structure and the ability to set and achieve realistic goals, needed for successful living. Productivity is the goal of vocational therapy and the vocational rehabilitation specialist. Productivity, in some form, can and should be achieved by every person with SCI.

    Although the emphasis of vocational therapy has been securing gainful employment, this is not its only goal and "work" is not the only measure of productivity. Productivity simply means 'doing something for a purpose that you value' and deriving a sense of satisfaction and self-esteem from the activity. Although productivity of course includes employment in the traditional sense, it also includes education and avocational activities, group memberships, family and community participation, and all activities where a group of people engage in self-directed activities. Thinking about and setting productivity goals early in your rehabilitation process will help you achieve those goals.

THE VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION PROCESS

     Vocational therapy begins with a comprehensive vocational evaluation to determine a person's basic skills, including their dexterity and other physical capabilities, as well as their cognitive capabilities. The evaluation process also includes a component that determines changes in physical and cognitive capabilities and interests over time.

     Once the evaluation is complete, the occupational or vocational rehabilitation specialist will help the person:

• Select and learn to use any assistive equipment they may need to enter or re-enter the work force or engage in another method of productivity.
• Develop personal supports, such as peer-to-peer mentor programs and appropriate interpersonal advocacy
• Identify potential work, educational, or other community environments where the person can be productive
• Identify and implement the necessary assistive equipment, environmental modifications, task restructuring, task modification, use of coworkers, students, or other members of the self-directed, productive group as personal assistants, etc.