Occupational Therapy Paper

For the practice of Occupational Therapy it teaches meaningful, functional, and adaptive life skills; it is a profession that enhances activities of daily living (ADL), and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL). IADL’s including community mobility, is a critical area for the United States citizens. Driving is an instrumental activity that needs addressed with each client for safety and testing motor movements. Between 2002 and 2012, more than 1.5 million U.S. soldiers returned to the United States after an active duty Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraq Freedom (OIF; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs [VA], 2012a). Soldiers are trained specifically to what branch of service they’re going into. Going through strict training their units,

A high-fidelity driving simulator can be used as an assessment tool to identify driving errors and as a treatment tool to re-mediate driving errors for combat veterans (Classen, Monahan, Canonizado, and Winter, pg. 405. 2014). Another test that could be completed by the occupational therapist is testing the veteran’s Praxis response. Praxis is planning a new motor act in response to an environmental demand. While driving if someone pulled out in front of the moving vehicle, if Praxis wasn’t presented then the driver wouldn’t be able to react and swerve away from the other vehicle. The effectiveness of interventions within the scope of occupational therapy practice, is to improve or maintain the driving performance and community mobility of combat veterans who return home from training, or war, who are continuously using military tactics when operating a vehicle. Even though these factors compromise the safety of the veterans and of other road users, little evidence currently exists on driving intervention for returning combat veterans (Classen, Monahan, Canonizado, and Winter, pg. 405.