Supporting practice - evidence and resources

Occupational therapy staff need to maintain an awareness of current policy, guidelines, research and best available evidence

Keeping up to date on policy and guidelines is part of the COT Professional Standards for Occupational Therapy Practice, but searching for relevant occupational therapy specific information can be complicated and time consuming.

These Supporting Practice - Evidence and Resources (SPEaR) pages aim to point you towards some key information on particular topics.

Each topic focuses on three areas:

• Policy and context
• COT resources
• Evidence  

Items listed have an electronic link to either the source document or relevant web site. Access to some individual journal articles may depend on local database subscriptions.

The topic lists are not intended to be all inclusive but draw together some core resources to assist your practice.  Members retain the responsibility for reviewing and interpreting the information in the context of their individual competency and specific circumstances of practice.

SPEaR topics

The following SPEaR topics are currently available to members:

1.    Adult Social Care
2.    Care Homes - NEW
3.    Children, Young People and Families
4.    Dementia - UPDATED
5.    Driving and Mobility Assessments - UPDATED
6.    End of Life Care
7.    Falls Management - UPDATED
8.    Learning Disabilities
9.    Mental Health
10.  Multiple Sclerosis
11.  Parkinson’s
12.  Public Health
13.  Reablement - NEW
14.  Service delivery and workforce planning
15.  Stroke
16.  Telecare
17.   Vocational Rehabilitation

If you think that you could contribute to an existing or new SPEaR topic, please contact: 
mandy.sainty@cot.co.uk