Why It Matters
The Gap Nobody Warns You About
Hospital rehabilitation ends on a date. You go home, and every skill you practised in a gym or a therapy kitchen now has to work in your bathroom, on your back step, in the supermarket you actually use.
That handover is where progress most often stalls. The supervised program stops, nobody translates it into your house, and within a few weeks the gains start slipping. Families describe it as being discharged into a vacuum.
Neurological occupational therapy picks it up from there. We work in your home and your community, on your real tasks, using your equipment and your routine. Because the therapy happens in the environment, nothing has to be transferred from a clinic into real life afterwards. It is already there.
The Approach
What Neurological OT Actually Does
Occupational therapy after a neurological event is not general exercise, and it is not the same job as physiotherapy. Physiotherapy builds the underlying physical capacity. Occupational therapy takes whatever capacity you have and makes a real task possible again, by retraining the task, changing how it is done, or changing the environment around it. In practice that means four strands of work, usually running together.
Stroke & Brain Injury Rehabilitation
Practical rehabilitation after stroke, TIA and acquired or traumatic brain injury. Upper limb and hand function, everyday tasks, cognition, and the work of getting back to what you did before.
Everyday Independence
Showering, dressing, toileting, cooking, managing medication, transport and getting out into the community, retrained in your own environment rather than described in a handout.
Cognition & Fatigue
Memory, attention, planning and problem solving, plus fatigue management and pacing built around your actual week. Fatigue after a neurological event is not ordinary tiredness, and it does not respond to simply pushing through.
Equipment & Home Modifications
Assistive technology and home modification assessment so your house works for the body you have now, with reports written to the evidence standard funding bodies require.
Who We Work With
Conditions We Support
You do not need a confirmed diagnosis to be referred. If function has changed and nobody has yet worked out why, an assessment is still useful.
- Stroke and TIA
- Acquired and traumatic brain injury
- Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders
- Multiple sclerosis
- Motor neurone disease
- Spinal cord injury
- Cerebral palsy
- Dementia and progressive cognitive conditions
- Epilepsy
- Huntington's disease
- Guillain-Barré syndrome
- Functional neurological disorder
- Post-viral and chronic fatigue conditions
In Practice
What We Work On
The work is practical and task-led. Sessions focus on the everyday activities that determine whether you can live the life you want at home. Here is what that tends to cover.
When to Act
When to Refer, and What Cannot Wait
Refer when someone is coming home from hospital, when function has changed, when a carer is struggling, or when a plan review is coming up and the evidence needs to be current. OT supports function and safety — it does not replace medical review, and we will say so when something needs your doctor.
In an emergency, act first. If you think someone is having a stroke — face drooping, arm weakness, slurred speech — call 000 immediately, even if symptoms pass (a TIA is a warning of a stroke to come). For new swallowing difficulty with coughing or choking, a sudden increase in falls, or rapidly worsening weakness, confusion or drowsiness, see your doctor the same day.
Make a Referral
Our Process
Make a referral
You, your family, a support coordinator, plan manager, GP, specialist or hospital discharge team can all refer. Call 1300 765 456 or submit a referral online.
We match you with the right clinician
Referrals go to an occupational therapist with experience in your condition, in your region.
First visit at home
At a time that suits, with family and carers welcome. Your OT comes to your home, usually for 60 to 90 minutes, and watches how you manage now rather than asking you to describe it — difficulty tends to show up in the doing. Bring a family member or carer if you would like to; it usually helps.
Goals and a plan
Agreed with you, in your words rather than clinical language, with strategies to use between sessions rather than only during them. Sessions run in your kitchen, your bathroom, your street, your workplace — that is the point of the service.
Review and reporting
Progress tracked, with reports for plan reviews, your GP or your care team. We will also tell you when a goal is not realistic in the timeframe you are hoping for, and what the alternative is, rather than letting you find out months later.
On recovery, honestly
The fastest change usually happens in the first six to twelve months after a stroke or brain injury, but function can continue to improve well beyond that, particularly when therapy targets specific everyday tasks rather than general exercises. Late referral is worth making. With progressive conditions the goal shifts from recovering function to holding onto it for longer and staying safe as things change, which is a different kind of work but no less useful.
Ready to book?
Book Neurological Occupational Therapy
You, your family, a support coordinator, plan manager, GP, specialist or hospital discharge team can all refer. Contact inOne Healthcare on 1300 765 456 or submit a referral online.
info@inonehealthcare.com.au
Flexible Options
Funding we accept.
NDIS
Support at Home
AT-HM scheme
Medicare
TAC
WorkCover
DVA
Private
Free 20min Consultation
Unsure what support you need, or have funding enquiries? Book a free 20-minute telehealth consultation with our team.