Occupational Therapy Blog
Combat Stress - rebuilding lives through Occupational Therapy (OT)
As individuals, our identity is often best defined by the occupations that are most important to us, and that we do on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can turn everyday tasks into challenges, and can make it difficult for veterans to participate in the things that they want or need to do.
OT at Combat Stress involves working with veterans to understand and overcome the obstacles and barriers they are facing that impact on their daily life. This begins with building a picture of a veteran’s Occupational Identity, which is constructed around what roles they value, the type of work they do, their hobbies and interests, and their meaningful relationships.
The Occupational Therapist will then assess the veteran’s Occupational Competence, which includes factors that may support or prevent them from functioning in the way they would like. This can encompass strengths, symptoms, life circumstances and difficulties. With this information, we know what is important to the veteran and what is they would like to achieve, their strengths and the challenges that are in their way.
Treatment is very personalised because every veteran has different goals with different views on what is important to them. It will involve working with a veteran in structuring their day and building a purposeful routine with meaningful activities to add to their life, which will create a healthy balance between productivity leisure and self-care. Treatment also involves introducing the veteran to specialist tools and strategies to manage symptoms, build confidence, develop resilience and to feel motivated again.
Our aim in OT is to empower each veteran to live a life that is meaningful to them.
"Our professional team are dedicated to working with veterans individually to teach, support and enable each veteran to live the life they want to. The specialist skills we have in assessing means we don’t just look at the symptoms, but understand the impact on the veteran’s daily experiences, and what is that is important to them to rebuild or develop to feel purposeful again."