The case for including sleep assessment and intervention in Occupational Therapy graduate and postgraduate education

Background: Sleep is inconsistently covered in undergraduate Occupational Therapy (OT) curricula (Green 2008), and OTs have reported they often rely on information gained through informal sources, which can impact negatively... [ view full abstract ]

Background:
Sleep is inconsistently covered in undergraduate Occupational Therapy (OT) curricula (Green 2008), and OTs have reported they often rely on information gained through informal sources, which can impact negatively on their confidence in addressing sleep (Faulkner & Mairs 2015). However sleep has been acknowledged as an important area for OTs to address, both in physical and mental health settings (Fung et al. 2013, Faulkner & Mairs 2015, Marger-Picard 2012).

Educational Philosophy or theory:
The poster will summarise the importance of sleep in relation to many aspects of occupational functioning, and the existing literature regarding and sleep and OT (Green & Brown 2015), including a summary of the results of a systematic literature search completed on this topic.

Application to Education and /or practice:
Concrete recommendations are put forward regarding proposed content for undergraduate and postgraduate education including: purpose of sleep, the sleep cycle, circadian rhythms and the impact of light, individual differences in sleep need, assessing sleep within holistic OT assessment, specific sleep disorders, ergonomics and sleep, environmental adaptation, bed adaptation, relaxation techniques, cognitive strategies and activity scheduling.