Telehealth
- Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic telecommunication technologies
- This allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions
- Telehealth can be offered via FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, etc
Examples of clinicians using telehealth:
- Occupational Therapy
- Physical Therapy
- Dentistry
- Counseling
- Speech Language Pathology
- Home Health
- Disaster Management
- Chronic Disease Monitoring and Management
With these uncertain times, Building Blocks Occupational Therapy Services has begun offering telehealth FaceTime and Zoom treatment sessions for our clients. We wanted to be able to treat our clients in a safe environment, offering them the professional and fun occupational therapy services they have become accustomed too. During these sessions, we have made daily school schedules with sensory and movement breaks within the schedule, home exercise programs, sensory diets, and different fine motor and visual motor worksheets which have been sent to parents. Being able to complete treatment sessions through FaceTime has been amazing. We have the opportunity to continue offering our clients services and help the online school process become a little smoother. Through FaceTime, we have been able to complete writing activities, exercises on a peanut ball, create obstacle courses, continue with sensory diets, and home exercise programs. During this time, being able to continue to see the joy and smiles on our clients faces has been very rewarding. All of the children have been very cooperative and excited to get to work. Telehealth also offers a more flexible schedule for the therapist and clients. Parents are able to schedule sessions during their online school day to offer their children movement breaks and the opportunity to interact with their occupational therapist. During these sessions, we are able to support parents and give them helpful resources for their children while they are working from home. The parents are able to continue to be active participants during treatment sessions, which allows for the strategies to be followed throughout the week. Everyone is trying to foster some semblance of normalcy within this unpredictable time and the therapeutic relationship provides the children a sense of peace and calmness, while giving them the fun learning experience they have come to love. I am thankful that technology enables us to complete treatment sessions during times of uncertainty and helps the children have fun and keep them in happy spirits.
