Exploring the Role of Occupational Therapy with Older Adults in Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Usually older adults have always been more or less neglected in our country. A number of them even forcefully live separately. Those who live with family, not all of them get the proper care from their family members. In this situation, to ensure their good-being, occupational therapy could be the best solution. Older adults suffer different types of health complicacy like arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer‟s, falls, substance abuse, depression, sleep problem etc. Occupational therapy can help them fight these diseases, overcome and of course rehabilitation. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study survey collection quantitative data to be developed to be easily accessible to a large group of occupational therapists. Data was collected from 51 occupational therapists from Savar CRP, Mirpur CRP, and occupational therapists working elsewhere through online. Convenience and snowball method was used regarding this study. Results: Among the 51 participators, all of them completed the survey though there was partial information missing. 47.1% of them were male and the rest were female. The lowest age was identified 25 and highest was 42. The participants mostly were from undergraduate degree in OT background. The majority of them are from Bangladesh whereas other 2 are from Vietnam and UK. Most of the participants are more or less trained to work with geriatric patients and experienced to do so. Conclusions: This study aimed to explore the roles of OT with older adults and discovered a number of facts. To serve the profession, it is essential for occupational therapists to understand their roles first, identify the core problems in older adults, highlight the interventions, identify the challenges behind the barriers, prepare themselves by gathering knowledge, experience, proper training, and minimize those challenges to serve the best. Finally, the roles that occupational therapists are playing with older adults have been