Occupation-Based Activity Analysis

Activity Analysis is an essential skill to occupational therapy. Students and practitioners need not only an understanding of what activity analysis is and how to break down the steps of a task, but also understand how each aspect of an activity influences participation in occupations. Occupation-Based Activity Analysis is a definitive text that effectively progresses the reader toward understanding the differences between occupations and activities, and the interaction of all of the components of activities and occupations, such as performance skills, client factors, activity demands, and contexts.

Occupation-Based Activity Analysis by Heather Thomas instructs students to analyze activities using the domain components as outlined in the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, 2nd Edition. This timely text guides the reader through understanding the process of activity analysis from the perspective of examining typical activity demands. Learning of key concepts is reinforced through case examples, worksheets, exercises, and sample analyses.

Beginning with defining the domain of practice through the areas of occupation, students will learn to identify occupations and activities, while learning to understand the importance of analysis to their domain of practice. Students and practitioners will also discover how to analyze the demands inherent to the activity itself, and the context which surround the activity and the people engaged in it. The component steps to analyzing activities or occupations are uncovered in separate chapters, each aspect reinforces concepts that are foundational to occupational therapy practice.

A Glance at What Is Covered:
• Activity versus occupation versus tasks
• Areas of occupation defined
• Details of how social and space demands, as well as objects influence performance
• Client factors and body functions and structures defined as they relate to performance in occupations
• The influence of the client’s contexts
• Performance patterns and how their influence on occupations
• How to grade and adapt an activity

Instructors in educational settings can visit www.efacultylounge.com for additional material to be used for teaching in the classroom.

Occupation-Based Activity Analysis is an excellent text for students and for practitioners looking to further their understanding of activity analysis.

Heather Thomas, PhD, OTR/L is Assistant Professor at Loma Linda University in Southern California. She has taught activity analysis in the occupational therapy master’s degree program since 2004. After obtaining her master’s degree in occupational therapy from the University of Southern California in 1998, she studied health care administration at Trident University and gained her PhD in health science in 2011. Thomas focuses her clinical work in the adult acute and acute rehabilitation settings. From 2000 to 2002, she was the Director of the Assistive Technology Center and from 2007 to 2008, she served as the Director of Occupational Therapy at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona California. She is actively involved in the Occupational Therapy Association of California, and has presented at state and American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) conferences. She currently serves as the California AOTA representative. Expanding occupational therapy’s reach into underserved areas, she volunteers in Haiti to work with those who had been injured during an earthquake that occurred in 2010. A yoga instructor for many years, she now enjoys practicing yoga at home in Los Angeles, snow skiing, learning new occupations, and participating in social activities with friends and family.