OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY

Research for occupational therapy

Papers an occupational therapist can act on, across daily living, mental health, hand therapy, paediatrics and rehabilitation, each read in full rather than from its abstract.

10,853 PAPERS · PAGE 207 OF 218 · NEWEST FIRST

• OTSystematic Review2026Home Modification Outcomes for Adults Aged 50 Years and Over and Their Relatives: A Scoping Review.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthAcross 38 studies, home modifications most often helped older adults keep bathing, dressing and moving around their home safely, with less fear of falling and less need for paid or family care. Three studies found no reduction in falls.
• PTOTOther2026Quantification of Lower Extremity Dressing Movements in Patients With Stroke.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationHow a stroke patient raises their trousers differs with how much help they need. Those needing supervision or hands-on help put much less weight through the affected leg and used different trunk and pelvic movement than those who were independent.
• OTCase-Control2026Visual Exploration and Construction Strategies Underlying Performance in the Block Design Task in Autism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults did about as well as non-autistic adults on the block design task, but solved it differently. They looked between the model and the blocks more often and built designs pattern by pattern; those approaches were the ones linked to success.
• OTQualitative2026The Early Movers Clinician's Guide: Co-Designing a Resource for the 24-Hour Movement Guidelines in Paediatric Occupational Therapy.Child: care, health and developmentOTs and caregivers said the 24-hour movement guidelines' time targets felt judgemental and one-size-fits-all, and its sitting and restraint language ignored children who need those supports. Their co-designed guide drops the numbers, leads with family goals, and comes in clinician and caregiver parts.
• OTSystematic Review2025What are the steps to resolution taken by key stakeholders following a case of workplace bullying: A scoping review.Work (Reading, Mass.)Many documented ways to resolve workplace bullying worked poorly or not at all, and 45.8% of the approaches were left to the victim to do alone. Leaving the job or separating the two people were the only approaches reported to help.
• OTNarrative Review2025A culturally integrative occupational therapy practice model based on traditional Chinese health culture in Mainland China.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTA conceptual paper rather than a study. It argues that traditional Chinese health ideas such as Yin-Yang balance and living in step with nature fit occupational therapy models, but it treats no patients and reports no outcomes.
• PTOTSLPOther2026Maternal Responsiveness, Parenting Self-efficacy, and Economic Empowerment: Determinants of Infant Development in Pakistan.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBPMore responsive, more confident mothers had lower odds of their baby showing developmental delay at six weeks, in communication, problem solving and personal-social skills. One check-up of 400 Pakistani mothers and babies, so it cannot show which came first.
• PTOTMeta-Analysis2026Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Efficacy of Shorter Duration Modified Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (mCIMT) Programs.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationLower-dose constraint-induced movement therapy (under 39 hours of supervised training plus at least 10 hours a day of restraint) improved arm function after chronic stroke in 5 trials, but only real-world arm use held up at follow-up. Evidence quality was rated very low.
• OTSLPCohort2026Feeding Therapy and its Relationship to Timing of Independent Oral Feeding for Preterm Infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.Physical & occupational therapy in pediatricsPreterm infants referred to feeding therapy reached independent oral feeding 1.5 weeks later than those not referred, but they were also sicker and born earlier. Starting therapy earlier was linked to reaching full oral feeding slightly sooner. How often therapy happened made no difference.
• OTPilot2025Acceptability and feasibility of online occupational performance coaching for parents of children with disabilities in the UK.The British journal of occupational therapyParents and therapists found the online coaching acceptable, and parents scored their children's occupational performance and their own satisfaction higher afterwards. With no control group and only eight families, this does not show the coaching caused the change.
• OTSystematic Review2025Virtual, augmented, and mixed reality training for improving social skills in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A systematic review.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTOnly some of the seven randomised trials found virtual or mixed reality training improved social skills in autism; others found little or no difference. The largest effects came from a parent-supported computer game programme for children, and the studies were too different to compare.
• OTQualitative2025Patient experiences of occupational formulation: It's about getting to know me.Australian occupational therapy journalForensic patients described the occupational formulation as a getting-to-know-you piece. They felt listened to and trusted their therapist to write them accurately, but it also surfaced losses and the limits of secure care, and most had never reviewed it again with an OT.
• OTQualitative2025Examining the clinical utility of the Occupational Therapy Observation Tool-Adjustment Support Details (OTOT-ASD): Experiences of paediatric occupational therapists.Australian occupational therapy journalSix experienced paediatric occupational therapists who trialled a companion observation form alongside standardised tests with autistic children said it sharpened their clinical reasoning and reporting. Time was the main problem, and only one of six thought it made assessments more accurate.
• OTSLPQualitative2026Exploring the Experiences of Caring for a Family Member With Intellectual Disabilities Displaying Behaviours That Challenge and/or Mental Health Difficulties Within the United Kingdom: A Meta-Ethnographic Review.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDFamily carers of people with intellectual disabilities described years of fighting for support, being left out of decisions about their relative, and reaching crisis before help arrived. They wanted professionals who listen, share their knowledge and build on strengths, not just problems.
• PTOTSLPSurvey2026Exploring Health Care Providers, Families and Educators' Perceptions of an Online Self-Paced F-Words for Child Development Foundations Course.Child: care, health and developmentPeople who took the free, self-paced F-words course rated it highly (mean satisfaction 8.5 out of 10) and said they used the F-words in goal-setting and family conversations. Families, health care providers and educators asked for shorter videos and more interaction.
• OTQualitative2026The use of telehealth as a strategy to provide occupational therapy services in South Africa.Work (Reading, Mass.)Occupational therapists said telehealth reached clients who lived too far away to attend, and worked well for anxious clients and children with autism. But they could not assess properly or build rapport remotely, and load-shedding, data costs and poor devices broke sessions.
• OTSLPQualitative2026'I Know Death': Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Death Among Middle-Aged Adults With Intellectual Disabilities in South Korea.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDBereaved middle-aged South Korean adults with intellectual disabilities described death as frightening, and as a move to an afterlife where their parents watch over them. Most wanted to live long and stay healthy; some said they would accept death calmly.
• OTSystematic Review2026Scoping Review of Co-Design in Mental Health Research: Essential Elements and Recommendations.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthReports of co-design in mental health research use the name for quite different things. The essentials that recur: share power, treat lived experience as expertise, protect time for relationships and safety. Funding cycles and academic hierarchies stand in the way.
• OTOther2026Emotional and Behavioural Problems of Children and Youth With Intellectual Disabilities Following the February 6 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake: A Mixed-Methods Study.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDTeachers rated children with intellectual disabilities after the February 2023 Türkiye earthquakes highest for social, attention and thought problems, with boys rated higher than girls for aggression and rule-breaking. Drawings often omitted details, but nothing was measured before the earthquake.
• OTQualitative2025Devotion to Family: Coping Strategy to Reduce Burden of Caregiving Stroke Patients.Occupational therapy internationalIndonesian family caregivers of stroke survivors said pride, religious acceptance of fate and family duty kept them going through exhaustion, lost sleep, money worries, anger and fear. None were health workers; they learned caregiving by trial and error.
• OTSurvey2025Factors Influencing Return to Work Among Women With Acquired Brain Injury.Occupational therapy international61.2% of these women with acquired brain injury had returned to work. Each extra year of age made return less likely, while support from managers at work made it about five times more likely. Education, marital status and impairment did not predict return.
• PTOTQualitative2025What stroke survivors say about living with upper limb spasticity and how they manage it.Australian occupational therapy journalStroke survivors with upper limb spasticity described life as continuous adaptation: expecting, learning, practising, evaluating, moving forward. They devised their own strategies, such as a paint roller holder worn at night to keep the hand open, and chose what services and equipment to use.
• OTOther2025Development and initial psychometric properties of the timed upper limb assessment in older adults with Parkinson's.The British journal of occupational therapyA new 10-item timed hand and arm test took people with Parkinson's 22.2 seconds on average, against 16.8 seconds for controls, and times rose with disease stage. Two raters scored the same videos alike, but no one has yet re-tested the same person.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Priorities and Perspectives Regarding Goals and Outcomes of Support for Autistic Children Under 12 Years: A Systematic Review.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceThe goals that autistic adults, families and professionals ranked highest for autistic children were communication, mental well-being, autonomy and community inclusion. Reducing autistic traits, neurotypical social skills training and academic targets ranked lowest. Professionals still leaned towards social skills and spoken language.
• PTOTSurvey2026Rehabilitation Underutilization: Using a Model of Rheumatoid Arthritis to Illustrate Unmet Needs.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translation25% of 309 adults with rheumatoid arthritis had moderate to severe limits in everyday physical function but had never used physiotherapy or occupational therapy for it. Underuse was most common in people on Medicaid or Medicare, without insurance, and on lower incomes.
• OTQualitative2026Qualitative Analysis of User Experiences of a mHealth Self-Care Intervention for Care Partners of Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationIn interviews, care partners of people with traumatic brain injury said the app's self-care prompts raised their awareness but often arrived at times they could not act, and its dashboard scores confused them. Technical glitches lost data and notifications.
• OTOther2025Designing an instrument for police officers' life balance and sustainable lifestyle.The British journal of occupational therapyTherapists developing a lifestyle questionnaire for Swedish police officers found their draft domains did not hold together: raters disagreed on what mattered most, and the original five domains had to be split and expanded to nine.
• OTSurvey2025The work of forensic occupational therapists in solitary confinement: An international survey.Australian occupational therapy journalManaging risk decided whether a session happened, whether it took place inside or outside the cell, how many staff were needed, and what objects could be used. Therapists said watching patients' distress was their main stress, and debriefing with colleagues was how most coped.
• OTQualitative2025Menstruation among autistic adults: An occupational perspective.The British journal of occupational therapySix autistic adults described periods disrupting self-care, work and leisure through sensory overload, unpredictable cycles and anxiety about bathroom access and leaking. None had been offered professional support for the autism-specific side of managing menstruation.
• OTQualitative2025'Ask someone, what is their Dreaming?': Exploring occupational performance coaching with service providers supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.Australian occupational therapy journalStaff said the word 'goal' in occupational performance coaching did not fit the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families they work with. They suggested framing plans around a family's Dreaming instead, which is ongoing, not something that ends. Building relationships over time came first.
• OTQualitative2025Empowering Advocacy: A Theatre Pedagogy Training With Occupational Therapists.Occupational therapy internationalParticipants said the theatre-based programme shifted how they saw their own practice: noticing how clinical language emphasises weaknesses, asking whose problem a child's behaviour is, and letting the person lead instead of assuming they know. Most had no earlier advocacy training.
• OTOther2026Variability of the Behavioral Assessment Screening Tool for Mobile Health Using Ecological Momentary Assessment in Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationPrompting adults with chronic TBI daily, every other day or at random made no difference to how much their symptoms swung. Day to day, fatigue varied most and substance misuse least, and people fell into three groups by how stable their reports were.
• OTQualitative2026Facilitators and Barriers to Implementing French-Canadian Lifestyle Redesign® in Occupational Therapy Practice.Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapieQuebec therapists, students, decision makers and community partners saw the French Lifestyle Redesign program as evidence-based and worth running, but named its length, cost, thin staffing and public-sector mandates as the obstacles. Public settings were judged the hardest to start in.
• PTOTPilot2026Changes in body composition and safety of exercise for individuals with severe cerebral palsy: single-group pre-post observational study.Journal of physical therapy sciencePassive exercise for three months caused no harm in 11 adults with GMFCS level V cerebral palsy, but did not measurably change muscle mass or swelling. Trunk and right leg fluid had already risen by the three-month mark.
• PTOTSLPPilot2026Exploring Treatment Expectations and Clinical Meaningfulness in Spinal Muscular Atrophy Using the Goal Attainment Scale.Archives of rehabilitation research and clinical translationPeople with SMA asked to set their own goals most often chose independence in movement, upper limb strength and daily activities. Most of those goals matched items on the motor scales already in use.
• OTPilot2026A Geometric-Based Handwriting Intervention (GBHI) for Chinese Handwriting: Development, Feasibility, and Pilot Findings.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTHandwriting scores moved in the right direction after a 12-hour Chinese handwriting program, but with only 4 boys and no control group nothing reached significance. Eight children who tried one module rated it highly, though copying tasks were least liked.
• OTOther2026Utilizing nominal group technique to achieve consensus on a clinical decision-making tool for vocational rehabilitation at a grassroots level in South Africa.Work (Reading, Mass.)Eleven experienced South African occupational therapists reviewed three vocational rehabilitation decision-making tools and judged two of them clinically useful. The job-matching tool drew the least support and one objection and is not ready to use. None has been tested with patients.
• OTSystematic Review2026Autonomic Function in Fragile X Syndrome: A Systematic Review.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDRMost of the 28 studies, covering 727 people, found Fragile X syndrome comes with a body stuck in a stress state: the arousal system running high and the rest-and-digest brake lower. Whether that links to anxiety or autistic traits was contradictory.
• PTOTCohort2026Reliability and validity of two square agility test and workability rate of manipulation in adults with musculoskeletal disorders.Journal of physical therapy scienceThe Two Square Agility Test and the WorkAbility Rate of Manipulation gave steady repeat scores three weeks apart in 55 adults with musculoskeletal disorders. A change beyond 0.74 steps a second on agility, or 6.5 to 13.1 parts a minute on dexterity, is likely real.
• OTSurvey2026Health-promoting resources and social study factors among students with and without foreign backgrounds in nursing and social work programs at six Swedish universities.Work (Reading, Mass.)Students with foreign backgrounds started nursing or social work training with lower health and coping scores and weaker ties to classmates than other students. By the final semester those gaps had closed, though they still felt less listened to and talked about studies less.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2026Neonatal Therapy Interventions Supporting Oral Feeding Skills in Preterm Infants: A Systematic Review.Physical & occupational therapy in pediatricsPreterm infants given oral motor stimulation, non-nutritive sucking, swallowing exercises or sensory-based therapy reached full oral feeding sooner than controls, by 4 to 9 days in the studies that found a difference. Effects on weight gain and length of stay were inconsistent.
• PTOTMeta-Analysis2026Effects of hydrokinesitherapy on balance and walking ability for stroke survivors: update of a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies.European journal of physical and rehabilitation medicineWater-based exercise improved stroke survivors' balance on some tests but not others: Berg Balance Scale scores improved by a moderate amount, while the Timed Up and Go did not. Evidence was insufficient for walking ability or daily activities.
• OTOther2026Community Implementation of a Clinician and Caregiver Co-Led Programme to Promote the Wellbeing of Family Caregivers of Individuals With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDEleven of 12 Canadian organisations ran the CC-ACT programme for family caregivers of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, delivering 91.8% of planned content as designed. Over 90% of the 83 caregivers surveyed found it helpful; attendance dropped 27% by the last session.
• PTOTSurvey2026Living with spinal cord injury in the community of Bangladesh: a comprehensive analysis using the ICF framework.Journal of rehabilitation medicinePeople with tetraplegia reported worse function, more environmental barriers and lower confidence than those with paraplegia in a survey of 789 adults with spinal cord injury in Bangladesh. Pain, muscle tone problems, poor sleep and low mood were common in both groups.
• OTSurvey2026A Network Analysis of Alexithymia, Interoception, Empathy, Self-Awareness and Psychopathological Symptoms in Young People With Autism Spectrum Disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchDifficulty describing feelings sat at the centre of a web of traits and symptoms in 208 young people with autism, along with anxiety and depression. Autistic traits themselves were only weakly connected. One-off snapshot, so no cause and effect.
• PTOTCohort2026Falls and Fall-Related Injuries and Hospitalizations in Autistic Older Adults: A Medicare Data Study.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceNearly half of autistic Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and over had a fall, against about a third of matched non-autistic peers, with around twice the odds of falling and more repeated fall injuries.
• OTOther2026Evaluating Strategy Use, Online Awareness and Memory Performance Using the Contextual Memory Test Version 2 (CMT-2) in Healthy Adults.Hong Kong journal of occupational therapy : HKJOTHealthy adults who remembered the pictures using context or meaningful associations recalled more than those who used limited associations. Most underestimated how many they would recall, and underestimating more went with better recall. Age made no difference.
• OTSystematic Review2025Systematic review of co-occurring transition of retirement and migration: An occupational perspective.The British journal of occupational therapyRetirees who move abroad permanently are drawn by cheaper living and warmer climates, then settle in through community groups, volunteering and contact with other migrants. Language barriers and healthcare access are the recurring difficulties. No included study treated retirement and migration as linked occupational transitions.
• OTSystematic Review2025Physical Activity Interventions Within Occupational Therapy for Persons With Substance Use Disorder: A Systematic Review.OTJR : occupation, participation and healthAll ten yoga studies and all seven tai chi studies reported benefits for people with substance use disorder: fewer cravings, better mood, sleep and quality of life. High-intensity training results were mixed, and dance and music did not reduce substance use.
• OTSystematic Review2026Drag as a meaningful occupation: A scoping review.Australian occupational therapy journalAcross 34 studies, drag performers described drag as meaningful work that let them explore identity, build 'chosen family' ties and contribute to their communities, while facing widespread discrimination. They reported more anxiety and depression symptoms, and no study looked at their health care.