Potential benefits of the cognitive orientation to daily occupational performance approach in young adults with spina bifida or cerebral palsy: a feasibility study

Abstract

Purpose: People with cerebral palsy (CP) or spina bifida (SB) often struggle to perform everyday-life activities. Both groups frequently also have difficulties in creating and using strategies effectively when performing tasks. The cognitive orientation to daily occupational performance (CO-OP) Approach combines the learning of cognitive strategies with task-specific approaches through a client-centred procedure. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the CO-OP Approach is feasible for and potentially beneficial to adolescents and young adults with CP or SB in Sweden by analysing four areas of feasibility (acceptability, efficacy, adaptation, and expansion).

Methods: Exploratory multiple-case study using mixed methods. Ten persons aged 16–28, five with each condition, participated in an intervention period. Assessments were performed on three occasions: baseline, post-intervention, and six-month follow-up.

Results: The result demonstrates that the CO-OP Approach has the potential to enable adolescents and young adults with either condition to achieve personal goals and to enhance their planning skills and their ability to use strategies when performing activities. This approach is also compatible with the core values of habilitation in Sweden and was found by the participants to be highly meaningful and useful.

Conclusions: The CO-OP Approach is feasible for adolescents and young adults with SB or CP in Sweden.

Implications for rehabilitation

• The Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance

• • is a feasible approach for adolescents and young adults with spina bifida and with cerebral palsy.

• • is a promising approach when it comes to enabling the achievement of personal goals.

• • might have potential to enhance executive functioning through strategy use.

• • is in line with the fundamental core values of disability rights of inclusion, empowerment, and participation.

Keywords:

• Client centred therapy
• metacognition
• executive functions
• activities of daily living
• cerebral palsy
• myelomeningocele

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the 10 persons who participated in the study. The authors gratefully acknowledge this support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported financially by the Promobilia foundation, the RBU Research Foundation, the Norrbacka Eugenia Foundation, the Folke Bernadotte Foundation, Habilitation & Health, Västra Götalandsregionen, the Uppsala Hemsysterskolas fund, and the Foundation Sunnerdahl Handikapp fund.