Basics
Occupational therapist vs physiotherapist: what’s the difference?
Physiotherapists focus on movement: regaining strength, range of motion, balance, and physical recovery from injury or surgery. Occupational therapists focus on activity: what you need to be able to do every day, and what’s in the way of doing it. The two often work alongside each other but ask different questions.
One concrete example
Imagine someone recovering from a stroke that affected their right side.
A physiotherapistworks on rebuilding strength in the affected arm and leg, improving balance, retraining walking, and preventing muscle tightness. They'll prescribe exercises to do at home and measure progress in objective ways — how far they can walk, how much they can lift, how steady they are when turning.
An occupational therapistlooks at the same person and asks: can they get out of bed in the morning, dress themselves, make a cup of tea, type at a computer, drive, go back to work? Where they can't, the OT works on retraining the task, adapting how it's done, providing equipment, or changing the environment.
When you might need each one
Need a physiotherapist if you're recovering from a fracture, joint surgery, sports injury, neurological condition that mainly affects movement, or you want to improve general physical function.
Need an occupational therapist if your everyday activities have been disrupted by illness, injury, neurological change, mental-health condition, ageing, or developmental difference — and you want practical help getting back to doing them.
In serious cases — stroke, brain injury, spinal cord injury — most people benefit from both, often as part of a coordinated team alongside speech therapy, psychology, and case management.
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