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AOTA Celebrates National Occupational Therapy Month U.S. Newswire 5 Apr 14:43 The American Occupational Therapy Association Celebrates National OT Month By Connecting Consumers With Local Occupational Therapists To: National Desk Contact: Brynda Pappas of The American Occupational Therapy Association, 301-652-6611, extension 2963 (day); 301-588-8640 (evenings) BETHESDA, MD, April 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- April 2001 is National Occupational Therapy Month, a time when the importance of a person's ability to enjoy health, well being, and independence through purposeful occupation is honored by occupational therapists throughout the United States. The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), which represents approximately 50,000 practitioners of this health and rehabilitation profession, is celebrating the month with the launch of an online directory designed to help consumers locate an occupational therapist in their area. The Association's web site at http://www.aota.org offers a new feature called "Find an Occupational Therapist," which permits a person to search for an occupational therapist in a particular specialty or a convenient locality. "We are very excited about this new ability to connect consumers who can benefit from occupational therapy as a result of injury, disease, disability or other health risk, with practitioners who have special insight in particular areas of practice," said AOTA President Karen Jacobs. Every day, occupational therapists help children with conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome, mental retardation, spina bifida, ADHD, and many other health problems, succeed in the "occupations" of learning, playing, and growing. Occupational therapists also help injured workers return to the job and teach healthy employees how to prevent injuries at work. Common work-related conditions that improve with occupational therapy include hand and wrist problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis. Older persons often have a variety of health problems that can be helped by occupational therapy. For example, arthritis, strokes, and Parkinson's disease can affect a person's ability to carry out many activities of daily living such as dressing and eating. But occupational therapy provides new ways to help carry out these tasks, with the goal of making the older person as independent and as safe as possible. Members of the American Occupational Therapy Association will meet April 19 - 22, in Philadelphia, for AOTA's 81st Annual Conference and Exposition. http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0405-127.html ********* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn