Health Vs Occupation

“Health is a state of complete physical, social and mental wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. (WHO, n.d.). “Occupation is an activity or a set of activities that is performed with some consistency and regularity, that brings structure and values and meaning by individuals and culture” (Townsend and Polatakjo, 2013). Health is important in our everyday lives; it allows people to participate actively in many occupations which the person needs to or wants to perform. To demonstrate the interrelationship between health and occupation a case study will illustrate the environmental factors that affects a person’s life, how health affects a person’s ability to participate in occupations and displays how the “Basic Assumptions”

Having the ability to participate in occupations enables people to develop a variety of skills (Law, M, 2002) that increase the level of health experienced by the person. Participating in occupations will increase the person’s level of self-esteem and self-concept and it will allow them to be accepted socially. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health is the general theoretical perspective of health and it encompasses participating in occupations, involves being engaged, the ability to perform an occupation (Larsson-Lund, M., & Nyman, A. 2017). The Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement (CMOP-E) is the Occupational Therapy model used to illustrate the “interactions that result in occupational performance” (Townsend and Polatakjo, 2013). CMOP-E depicts the interrelationship between health and participation as the model includes the concepts of occupational engagement and performance. If a person is able to engage in an occupation, it means they are mentally involved in the occupation but they are not performing it and if they are performing it they are physically partaking in the occupation (Townsend and Polatakjo, 2013). If a person is able to engage in ab occupation, they have a strong sense of mental and social heath which will increase the motivation and hopefully increases the performance aspect of occupation. Emma participates in the Occupations

Self-care is an occupation that consists of tasks related to personal care such as toileting, grooming, dressing and bathing. The ‘basic assumption’ of ‘occupations bring meaning to life’ links significantly to the occupation of self-care. The assumption ‘occupation brings meaning to life’ is an important concept in our lives as people often “identify themselves by what they do” (Townsend and Polatakjo, 2013). Therefore, Emma considered herself a baby after her stroke as she was unable to partake in self-care occupations of feeding, dressing and toileting. If a person like Emma is unable to undertake these activities, it can lead to negative health impacts as it may make them feel useless and incapable of completing activities. Once a person attempts to complete the occupations in a different ways or seeks help to participate in occupations it will bring meaning to their life. They will now feel not defined by their deficits and that they can engage in all the task involved in occupations like self-care. This is demonstrated through Emma as she felt her life had meaning after she had rehabilitation as she was now able to participate in the self-care occupations such as toileting and feeding by herself without assistance. ‘Occupations organise time and bring structure to living,’ they