10 Most Common Occupational Therapy Assessments
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Occupational therapy assessments provide crucial information about a client that can help determine the most effective and appropriate treatment plan.
The outcomes of a client’s assessment can help an occupational therapist determine an area that a client is having difficulty and what specifically needs to be worked on and addressed in occupational therapy.
What are occupational therapy assessments used for?
Occupational therapy assessments look at specific areas of a client’s functioning and needs. This can include fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual perceptual skills, sensory integration, executive functioning and self care skills.
Through using an occupational therapy assessment, OTs can identify:
- If a client is having difficulty in a specific area
- How the client’s difficulty may impact their engagement during daily activities
- What level the client is currently able to function—and how this compares to other clients of a similar age
- Ways to help the client improve and mitigate their difficulties
Occupational therapy assessments can come in different formats. These can include assessments filled out by the therapist or client, or an assessment that’s based on an occupational therapist’s observation of the client. Some OT assessments require pen and paper, while others can be virtually administered or scored.
What type of occupational therapy assessment should I use?
The type of occupational therapy assessment you should use depends on the age and needs of your client.
In addition, some assessments require additional training to administer and score, so make sure you’re fully qualified and familiar with an OT assessment before you start to use it with a client.
How to get familiar with occupational therapy assessments
To help you get familiar with occupational therapy assessments, we’ve compiled a list of ten common assessments that are used with both pediatric and adult clients.
For OTs who work with pediatric clients, widely-used pediatric occupational therapy assessments focus on a client’s motor skills and sensory integration.
If you work with adult clients, occupational therapy assessments tend to focus on a client’s executive function, engagement in meaningful occupations, and engagement in everyday activities.
Pediatric occupational therapy assessments
The Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Sixth Edition (Beery VMI)
The Beery VMI provides a screen for visual-motor deficits that can lead to learning, behavior, and neuropsychological problems. The Beery VMI is considered best practice when it comes to assessing a client’s visual motor integration. An important thing to note is that the Beery VMI can be administered to both adolescents and adults.
Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, Second Edition (PDMS-2)
The PDMS-2 is used for pediatric clients under the age of five. It combines an in-depth assessment of both a child’s gross and fine motor skills. As a result, it’s a favorite among early intervention providers and pediatric OTs.
Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2)
The BOT-2 is one of the most comprehensive measures of both gross and fine motor skills for clients aged 4-21. The BOT-2 is popular among school-based occupational therapists and clinic-based occupational therapists.
The Sensory Profile 2 is a collection of assessments used with children aged 14 and under. This assessment helps evaluate a client’s sensory processing and identifies how it may contribute or interfere with their participation at home, school, and the community.
Sensory Processing Measure, Second Edition (SPM-2)
The SPM-2 provides a complete picture of a client’s sensory integration and processing in multiple environments. The SPM-2 can be used for clients who are 4 months old, to clients who are 87 years old. It also provides additional descriptive clinical information on processing vulnerabilities within each sensory system. These vulnerabilities include under-and-over reactivity, sensory-seeking behavior, and difficulties with perception.
Adult occupational therapy assessments
Kawa is the Japanese word for ‘river.’ The Kawa Model can be used by both adolescent and adult clients and uses the natural metaphor of a river to depict one’s life journey. Occupational therapists try to enable, assist, restore, and maximize their clients’ life flows. The Kawa Model can be used as a conceptual model of practice, frame of reference, as well as serve as an assessment tool and modality.
The Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM)
The COPM helps OTs identify issues of personal importance to a client and detects changes in a client’s self-perception of occupational performance over time. The COPM is popular with Occupational Therapists as it enables personalized health care, and is currently used by OTs in more than 40 countries.
Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living (Katz ADL)
The Katz ADL is used with clients to assess their functional status. It also provides a measurement of a client’s ability to perform independent activities that are part of their daily routine. Occupational therapists typically use the Katz ADL to detect problems in everyday activities, so they can plan more specified care.
The Stroke Impact Scale was developed at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and is used with adult occupational therapy clients after they’ve had a stroke. This scale measures the aspects of stroke recovery found to be important to patients and caregivers.
This can include:
- Strength
- Hand function
- Mobility
- Everyday activities
- Emotion
- Memory
- Communication
- Social participation.
Executive Function Performance Test (EFPT)
The EFPT can be used with both adolescence and adult occupational therapy clients to assess how a client completes four basic tasks. These tasks are essential for self-maintenance—specifically— cooking, telephone use, medication management, and bill payment.
How to comply with copyright and intellectual property
Most occupational therapy assessments are copyrighted and protected by intellectual property laws. This means you have to purchase the assessment in order to use it, and you can’t copy it or use it anywhere else. However, it’s typically acceptable to make references to an individual assessment in your notes and documentation, as long as you’re not copying parts of the assessment.
Example: Beery VMI was administered to client on 3/1/2022. Upon scoring of the Beery VMI, client was noted to have a raw score of 100 and a standard score of 50. Therapist interpretation of the Beery VMI results is that client is noted to demonstrate decreased visual motor integration.
The example shows a reference to the Beery VMI, but doesn’t replicate any actual parts of the assessment. Remember, if you’re not sure what’s acceptable or have any outstanding questions, it’s best practice to check directly with the assessment publisher, or in some cases, a lawyer who specializes in copyright and IP.
How to use an OT assessment with your EMR
Once you’ve completed your occupational therapy assessment, you can make references and record your findings in the documentation section of your EMR. Most top-rated EMRs have a fully integrated notes and documentation section, so it’s easy to keep track of client progress.
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