Domain and Process

How do the Domain and Process differ? …work together?

The domain would be the areas that OT and client have identified to be an occupation, (ADL, IADL, Education, Leisure, Social Participation, Play, Work, Rest/Sleep) something that is important and adds meaning to the client’s life. The domain supports a client’s participation in a healthy life style which means their ability to participate in their chosen occupation.

The process includes evaluation, intervention and outcomes. The evaluation would include the profile, a client’s strengths, weaknesses and motivation along with the client’s concerns about why they are seeking service and what they hope will be the outcome. Also part of the evaluation would include observation of the client as he/she participated in their occupation. At this time the OT could determine if more assessments were needed or if they had enough information to create an intervention.

The intervention would include what services were needed and how those services should be delivered and what the outcome should be, during the intervention there would also be a review process where the outcome could be revised along with the services being delivered.

The final part of the process would be the outcome; “engagement in occupation to support participation” The outcome could include if the client was able to do their occupation easier/better, if the client was satisfied, if the client obtained health and wellness, or learned prevention or improved the quality of their life.

Without the Domain a person could create a Process for a client (at assisted living with a meal plan/or at home with a meals on wheel program) which could mean being able to cook/bake hot meals for themselves, but if the client didn’t want to learn to cook/bake and were content eating meals already prepared – the client might learn new skills but the skills would not transfer to their occupation. And without the process just identifying occupations a client wants help with but not having a plan or a way to determine if they are successful would be like giving every client in OT a library card and telling them all the answers are just through the door. Yes, the client would have the information but no way to apply the information to their own life.

• In your own words, what is the “occupational profile”?

The occupational profile is kind of like the 5 W’s the fundamental questions of journalism. (Who, What, When, Where, Why) The occupational profile will include (Who, Why, What, What, What…) Who is the client? Why is the client seeking services? What occupations have they been successful/unsuccessful at? What is the desired outcome? What concerns does the client have? What areas of their environment, culture, social, physical, personal or spiritual will help and what areas will hinder in obtaining the desired outcome. When would the client like to be able to achieve their desired outcome?