A holistic occupational therapy programme at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) for treating mental illness is proving to be a great success.

The programme comprises of arts and crafts, communication, socialisation and confidence building skills as part of the treatment pathway for patients.

“Our focus is improving the quality of life of our patients through occupational therapy because due to long-time psychiatric illness, they lost their basic working and daily life skills and are unable to take care of themselves. Many are also unable to socialise because of the stigma associated with mental illness in the community,” said chief of occupational therapy, Sultan Salim al-Abdulla.

“As occupational therapists, our main aim is to help patients reacquire these skills to improve their quality of life. This is perfectly in line with HMC‘s ongoing efforts to ensure patient safety and improve our patients’ quality of life through the care we provide.”

Occupational therapy specialist Ashok Bhagat recalled that every day, different sessions are held for patients such as how they can improve concentration while carrying out a task."We teach them social skills, communication skills and coping mechanisms as well as stress management. We also assess them daily to check the success of our treatment goals. Once a goal is achieved we move on to the next.”

Art therapy is used to help patients improve their concentration or boost their interest levels while engaging in a task. “To increase their attention span, we encourage patients to actively participate in arts and crafts. By creating some pieces of art by themselves, patients have a sense of confidence that they can do something on their own,” he said.

Bhagat said the majority of their patients are experiencing depression or an anxiety disorder, often triggered by a change of environment or stress.

“We have three male acute units comprised of a total of 45 patients.There are 20 females in our female acute unit. In addition, we offer day care services separately for males and females, including adult outreach and home care programmes covered by eight occupational therapists,” he added.

Bhagat stressed that to create a sense of self-motivation in discharged patients, occupational therapists encourage them to continue their therapeutic learning in a specially designed day care programme.