Recent studies to determine appropriate theories of adult neurological rehabilitation for South African Occupational Therapy (OT) curricula are non-existing. Seven OT training centres in South Africa participated in a survey to determine the content of the OT neurological rehabilitation curricula. The results showed that there are no specific requirements for the assessment and treatment of stroke patients in the OT curricula and standardized assessments are not commonly taught at an undergraduate level. A second survey was conducted by means of a questionnaire to OT clinicians in the field of neurological rehabilitation. The sample consisted of 29 subjects. The questionnaire surveyed the current settings where stroke patients are receiving OT, the subjects’ treatment protocols with stroke patients, and their use evidence based practice (EBP). The most commonly use theory was neurodevelopmental therapy (NDT) and the majority of subjects received training in this theory. Standardized assessments were not used to measure the effectiveness of treatment, therefore OTs were unsure of the effect of their interventions. OTs also had difficulty explaining their reasons for choice of theories and their theoretical justification was not based on scientific evidence. Only 51.85% of the sample usually uses EBP, and the subjects’ own experience had the greatest effect on their use of EBP. Two factors, the lack of time and lack of knowledge impeded the subjects’ use of EBP the most. There is however a lack of sufficient evidence regarding which neurological rehabilitation theories are the most effective and therefore more research in the South African and OT contexts is needed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/10691 |
| Date | 03 November 2011 |
| Creators | Freeme, Juliana Dorothea |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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