Information for Medical Professionals

General Practitioners

An AdaptLife OT referral is appropriate and important if:

• A patient is medically stable but reporting functional challenges with activities of daily living.
• Anxiety or depression is affecting your patient’s quality of life
• Long-term residential care is being considered. If your patient or their family is unsure about this next step, AdaptLife will present other realistic options.
• Your patient has a new diagnosis that can or will affect their ability to work or parent.
• Your transgender patient reports concerns with their ability to stay in secondary or tertiary education 

Consider an AdaptLife OT referral in tandem with a referral to a psychiatrist, psychologist, physiotherapist, orthopaedic surgeon, rheumatologist, cardiologist and geriatrician.

How to refer? Please click here.

Physiotherapists

Once you have identified the functional problems your patient is experiencing at home, an AdaptLife OT can assist in the next steps:

• We can advise your patient on adaptive ADL equipment.
• We can assess a patient's home and provide a detailed list of environmental adaptions to support independence.
• We offer a pre-admission service to enable independence pre- and post-surgery that will affect mobility, transfers and ADL.
• We develop and implement graded returns to employment and other responsibilities.
• When low mood and anxiety are affecting your patient's functional treatment outcomes AdaptLife can assess and identify specific cognitive strategies to bring on functional change.

How to refer? Please click here. ^ back to top

Consultants

AdaptLife specialises in activity analysis and uses a compensatory model of practice. This enables a patient’s interest and need for independent self care, work, leisure, domestic activities and social interaction to be facilitated during an active phase of treatment, pre and post surgery, or as a chronic condition is being monitored.

An AdaptLife OT is particularly well developed in the following areas and can be useful in any situation that a patient is reporting functional problems.

• Oncology
• Cardiology
• Rheumatology
• Orthopaedics
• Psychiatry
• Geriatrics
• Endocrinology

How to refer? Please click here.

Public Health Nurses

AdaptLife can assist when your patient needs timely OT assessment and intervention when the Primary Care Team does not have an OT available.

The following situations may indicate an AdaptLife OT referral:

• Your patient does not have a medical card and can claim OT fees under private health insurance.
• A carer reports an inability to cope with the burden of care.
• Patients who are not able to access their community or social groups due to anxiety or low mood.

How to refer? Please click here. ^ back to top

Psychologists

It can be useful to refer to an AdaptLife OT for a compensation or adaptive approach to the impact of psychological distress on Activities of Daily Living during a period of treatment.

Anxiety and Depression can affect all high level activities (managing home duties, remaining employed) as well as the low/simple tasks, like getting dressed or bathing.

How to refer? Please click here.

Residential Care Managers

To meet HIQA’s National Quality Standards for Residential Care, AdaptLife can be engaged by a resident's family to assist and advise on the resident's issues of seating, dressing, sexuality and feeding.

Families who wish to take their relative on home visits would also benefit from an AdaptLife OT's advice on wheelchair access and mobility in the home environment.

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Home Care Providers

AdaptLife can advise on modifications and source equipment for a client that will allow your employees to do their job of caring in a safe and efficient way.