Major focus area

Occupational Therapy -> Balance

Short description

Balance Activities are therapeutic exercises designed to improve an individual's stability and prevent falls, particularly among the elderly or those recovering from injuries. These activities strengthen core muscles, enhance coordination, and develop proprioceptive awareness to maintain and improve functional balance.

Long description

Balance Activities in occupational therapy involve a series of graded exercises tailored to the individual's ability level and specific needs. These exercises might include static poses that challenge the individual to maintain a position with or without support, dynamic activities that require maintaining balance while moving, and sensory integration tasks that involve responding to various proprioceptive inputs.

Therapists use a variety of equipment, such as balance beams, wobble boards, and therapy balls, to create varying levels of challenge. The activities are often integrated with daily tasks to ensure they are meaningful and directly beneficial to the individual’s lifestyle, such as standing on one foot while reaching for objects or walking along a marked line.

Progress is monitored through both subjective feedback from the patient and objective measures such as time of stance or completion of task paths. The aim is to gradually increase the complexity and reduce the level of support, thereby enhancing the patient’s confidence and independence in performing daily activities safely.