Ergotherapy optimizes the ability of people to perform the activities that they need and want to do each day and thereby participate fully in society.   

 

The focus on everyday occupations addresses daily activities that people do on a recurring basis while engaged in diverse life pursuits and social roles. From birth through old age, everyday occupations can both support and disrupt routine, meaning and purpose in daily life; they can also both favourably and unfavourably influence health and well-being. Everyday contexts are daily living settings like schools, homes, workplaces or neighbourhoods. Ultimately, the need to participate in everyday occupations is so integral to what it means to be human that we believe that people are, in essence, occupational beings.    

 

Occupations occur within diverse social, physical, cultural, personal, temporal, or virtual contexts. The quality of occupational performance and the experience of each occupation are unique in each situation due to the dynamic relationship between factors intrinsic to the individual, the contexts in which the occupation occurs, and the characteristics of the activity.

The focus and outcome of ergotherapy are individuals’ engagement in meaningful occupations that support their participation in life situations. Ergotherapists view occupations as both a means and an end to therapy. That is, there is therapeutic value in occupational engagement as a change agent, and engagement in occupations is also the ultimate goal of therapy.

Ergotherapy is based on the belief that occupations may be used for health promotion and wellness, remediation or restoration, health maintenance, disease and injury prevention, and compensation/adaptation. The use of occupation to promote individual, community, and population health is the core of ergotherapy practice, education, research, and advocacy”