The Power of Function

Course overview

What does it mean and look like to truly work in function?  Does working in a functional context, environment, and/or task make a difference? How do we incorporate function into our intervention sessions with clients to optimize outcomes, especially when we have limited time? Clinicians working with adult clients can get away with working in non-functional and/or preparational-type activities in a therapy session.  Most adult clients will do what we suggest they do since we're the expert but, should they? The use of play has long been incorporated into our pediatric colleagues' sessions to keep the kids engaged while clinicians working with adults tend to work on individual components of movement and/or posture in our sessions and hope clients get functionally better.   Choosing tasks (or sub-tasks) that are not only salient for the individual but build movement components (motor and sensory) for many functional tasks and contexts, is critical to help our clients regain functional independence at the Participation level of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). There is an abundance of literature confirming that setting up functional practice improves outcomes for individuals post stroke and brain injury.  This 3-hour session will explore this research and use several case examples to demonstrate how to use the task, environment, and the individual's activity goals to drive the intervention session, all within an NDT framework.    This session will focus on the adult population to explore how the power of function can and should be a critical focus of every individual's intervention session(s).