Review of Task-Oriented Interventions in Occupational Therapy

Task-oriented treatment is a training or treatment that patients can practice movement tasks in an environmental context and receive feedback. The Occupational Therapy (OT) Task-Oriented Approach emerges from a system model of motor behavior and was discussed in 1995 by Trombly in OT models that are occupation based and client centered. It is one of the new approaches in OT which has been neglected by therapists. Thus, in the present review article, the effectiveness of this approach in various disorders was checked to help therapists and also provide the grounds for needs analysis in the future studies.
In the present study, keywords including Task oriented, occupational therapy, and intervention were searched in Scopus, Proquest, ScholarGoogle, PubMed, and ScienceDirect databases. Articles published between 1995-2016 were examined. From among the papers obtained, those meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and other articles were excluded.
From a total of 48 articles, 21 most relevant studies were selected for a full review. The results revealed that task-oriented approach improved occupational performance in activities of daily living, functional movements of the upper extremity, level of independence in self-care, postural stability, and mobility of people involved.
The review of the studies showed that task-oriented approach to rehabilitation is one of the effective techniques in improving movements of upper extremity in stroke, SCI, CP, as well as balance and mobility in stroke, MS, CP, and occupational performance in stroke and dementia.