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Manage at Home

We help people find ways to manage their everyday tasks at home

Home often represents a place of safety, comfort and belonging. People living with medical conditions – whether temporary or long-term – can find it hard to manage routine tasks such as personal care. Occupational therapists offer a wide set of skills to support a person’s goal to live and stay safe in their home. 

A big thank you to the Ontario Society of Occupational Therapists for this video.

Here are some ways an OT can help:

  • Home assessment:

    Visit a living space to identify barriers that could limit a person’s ability to perform tasks safely and independently.

  • Personalized therapy plans:

    Develop a plan based on the person’s goals, such as improve mobility and hand function, or learn adaptive ways to do tasks.

  • Teaching adaptive techniques:

    Teach alternate ways to do activities, such as using tools or techniques to ease the tasks of cooking, bathing, dressing, and cleaning.

  • Recommend assistive devices:

    Recommend and provide training on the use of assistive devices, such as grab bars, walkers, or specialized kitchen tools to increase safety and independence.

  • Activity modification:

    Teach people to break down tasks into manageable parts and change their ways to complete tasks successfully.

  • Caregiver education:

    Share strategies and provide training for caregivers to better support the person at home and in the community.

  • Fall prevention strategies:

    Provide strategies to reduce falls risk, such as improving balance and strength with exercises or making changes to the home layout.

  • Routine development:

    Help people establish a daily routine to promote healthy habits, support mental health and enhance productivity.

By focusing on these areas, OTs play a crucial role in helping people maximize independence and comfort in their home.

Meet Jose

Jose is an active, 78-year-old man living on his own with no family in town. 

He enjoys meeting up with his friends for breakfast and cooking Filipino food. He recently had fall and has difficulty moving around in his home and apartment building. There are two flights of stairs to access his apartment and Jose needs to climb stairs to do his laundry. Because of his poor balance and fear of falling, Jose is barely making meals for himself and is taking sponge baths to avoid stepping in and out of the tub.

On a medical visit, Jose’s doctor referred him to a community occupational therapist. The OT met Jose in his apartment and completed a home visit.

Jose’s goal was to get back to meeting up with his friends regularly.

Older man appears with a loss of purpose standing on a busy street corner holding onto a cane.

Outcome for Jose

  • Jose feels safer and more confident getting in and out of the tub to take a shower.

  • Jose is enjoying his time doing meal preparations with a friend. Together they drink coffee and prepare small freezer meal portions.

  • Jose is attending the virtual exercise program and is doing these exercises 2-3 times a week.

  • As Jose is feeling more mobile and confident, he's going out for longer walks using his walker and managing his laundry independently.

How an OT helped Jose

  • Helped Jose access home safety and mobility equipment such as a shower bench, wall grab bars in the shower and a walker. Practiced how to use the equipment safely.

  • Problem solved with Jose on how best to do laundry. Practiced going up and down stairs holding onto the rail, carrying laundry in a light back pack.

  • Discussed solutions to manage meal prep during recovery. Jose decided to have a friend help with simple meal prep once a week.

  • Referred Jose to a virtual exercise program to work on balance and strength at home.

Additional Information

Aging Well & Occupational Therapy
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