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“TOGETHER WE  REACH THE GOAL"

Obtaining Success through Occupational Therapy

& Leisure Activities

  a site for families with loved ones who have a

Traumatic or Aquired Brain Injury

  

Brain damage is a leading cause of changes in brain cognition in once healthy indiviuals.  As caregivers, it can be hard to witness the change in your loved one from the person they used to be. Depending on the severity of the damage to their brain, the changes my be subtle or profound. This website was developed to help you as the caregiver, help both create and encourage meaningful activities for your loved one once they return home from hospital or rehab care (Benjamin et al, 2009). Boredom, which researchers (Malkovsky et al, 2012, Goldberg et al, 2011) shows is a unique symptom of TBI and other brain injuries, can lead to withdrawl or risky behavior in an attempt to stimulate the mind. By taking the effort to find activities that are meaningful and of a positive nature before boredom sets in, you will be one step ahead of this happening. Leisure and recreational activities can also strengthen cognition and motor responses for both fine motor and gross motor skills (Pollanen, 2013 ).

 

Leisure activities, a fancy word for FUN, is typically something a healthy individual would do in their spare time. For someone recovering from a brain injury, all of their time is now spent in recovery and could be categorized as spare. Unless they have returned to work full time, leisure activities and activities of daily living, such as getting dressed, bathing, and eating are what fill their days. So how can you, as their caregiver make these activities meaningful and fun and release some of the day to day boredom, while also helping in their recovery?

 

Put on your superperson cape, and let's go back in time, because many of the activities that children do in their early years of school may look like fun, but are done with a purpose ( ). The purpose is to develop fine motor skills, cognition, gross motor skills and social skills, which are many of the same things your loved one with a brain injury needs help with.

 

 

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