OT Case Study

Participation, Function, Goals, Engagement

The following case study is fictional and has been written collaboratively by staff members of the NSW PPC Programme and the QuoCCA initiative. The information aims to help describe the role of Occupational Therapy in paediatric palliative Care. 

“I attended a school meeting with a family of a young girl with a chronic, complex, life limiting illness.  There was a planned excursion and her teacher felt it would not be manageable to take this girl along. The girl was desperate to go and enjoy this experience with her peers. There were limitations and genuine concerns raised by the teacher around this girls’ exercise tolerance and need for more support than the staff attending could provide”.

We worked with the school and the family to look at the excursion timetable and activities, negotiated some adaptions and additional support and assisted in hiring some equipment. She did attend the excursion and still talks of how much fun it was.”

Occupational Therapists can help with:

• Function and participation in meaningful activities and engagement in the environment
• Comfort, positioning and pressure care
• Provision of appropriate adaptive equipment
• Fatigue management and relaxation
• Memory making