Novel occupational therapy intervention in the early rehabilitation of patients with brain tumours

Statement of context: The Danish Health Authority recommends that patients with brain tumours should have their rehabilitation needs evaluated prior to hospital discharge. Critical reflection on practice: To our knowledge, no specific recommendations for specialised occupational therapy intervention in patients with glioma have been published. We rationalise how occupational therapy practices founded on shared decision-making and common goal-setting are implicated to patients with brain tumours and elaborate on how an occupation-centred approach with occupation-focused and based intervention has the potential to impact a patient's performance ability and satisfaction in performing occupations established by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure. This practice was embedded in a randomised controlled trial investigating the effectiveness of intensive rehabilitation efforts and involving occupational therapy compared with standard care in patients with glioma (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT02221986). Implications for practice: Occupational therapy makes an important contribution in neurorehabilitation, which may also apply to patients with brain tumours.