Occupational Therapy Overview

Principles

Definition

Occupational therapy is a healthcare discipline and allied health profession that focuses on enabling individuals across the lifespan to participate in meaningful activities and roles of daily life. It employs assessment, targeted interventions, and therapeutic use of occupation to develop, recover, or maintain the skills and capacities necessary for independent function and enhanced quality of life, addressing physical, cognitive, and psychosocial barriers.

Ontological type

Core Interventions

Assessment Tools

Client Populations

Key developments

Key Figures

Ergonomic Workplace Integration era

Mats Hagberg [1], affiliated with Umeå University [3] during the Ergonomic Workplace Integration era (1976-1989), helped foreground occupational ergonomic concerns in industrial settings. Hagberg [1] through his 1979 paper Clinical and ergonomic factors in prolonged shoulder pain among industrial workers [5] demonstrated how clinical and ergonomic factors intersect to shape prevention and rehabilitation strategies, laying groundwork for workplace ergonomic assessment and functional measures in the era. P.‐L. Kalliomäki [2], based at the University of Oulu [4] during this era, contributed to workplace health with emphasis on exposure-related risks in industrial environments. Kalliomäki [2] published the 1980 paper Occupational asthma due to stainless steel welding fumes [6], illustrating how occupational exposure surveillance and environmental-psychosocial integration supported prevention and functional reintegration in ergonomic workplaces.

Biopsychosocial Return-to-Work era

Robert Karasek [1], associated with the University of Southern California [3] and the University of Copenhagen [4], emerged as a leading figure in occupational health during the Biopsychosocial Return-to-Work era. His 1990 work Healthy work: stress, productivity, and the reconstruction of working life [7] articulated a psychosocial and contextual model of work stress that highlighted the role of job demands, control, and social context in disability and return-to-work, laying groundwork for era-wide shifts. M. Katherine Shear [2], affiliated with the University of California, San Diego [5] and Boston University [6], contributed to this era by advancing measurement of functional impairment and social adjustment. Her development of The Work and Social Adjustment Scale: a simple measure of impairment in functioning [8] provided a practical, standardized tool that enabled clinicians, workplaces, and insurers to monitor functioning and readiness for return-to-work within biopsychosocial frameworks.

Work-Centered Technological Rehabilitation era

Jarrod Haar [1] is associated with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [3] and the University of Otago [4] in the Work-Centered Technological Rehabilitation era (2009–2023). Haar [1] contributed to advancing understanding of work-life balance and its effects on job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and mental health, as demonstrated by the 2014 cross-cultural study 'Outcomes of work–life balance on job satisfaction, life satisfaction and mental health: A study across seven cultures' [7], providing crucial evidence for psychosocial risk management and return-to-work strategies in this era. Marcello Russo [2] is affiliated with University of Bologna [5] and Parthenope University of Naples [6] in this era. Russo [2] contributed by co-authoring the cross-cultural study 'Outcomes of work–life balance on job satisfaction, life satisfaction and mental health: A study across seven cultures' [7], whose findings on work-life balance and mental health underpin scalable, cross-context interventions that align with this era's emphasis on standardized assessments and remote or wearable-enabled support for sustained employment.