The Effect of Expressive and Instrumental Touch Coursework Example

Article Summary
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The article sought to investigate the use of expressive and instrumental touch provided by occupational therapy practitioners in qualified nursing facilities where skilled nursing and rehabilitative care is offered to geriatric patients in Southwest Florida. According to the article, instrumental touch is in most cases, deliberate and purposeful and used on a patient when performing a necessary task such as putting him/her in a wheelchair. On the other hand, expressive touch is impulsive and sentimental, and it is not given when performing any task. The results of the research indicated that 80% of the contacts in occupational therapy sessions were instrumental. Additionally, the average number of instrumental touches was about 9.8 compared to a mean number of 2.5 of expressive touches that were recorded during sessions. Gender also affected the type of touch that was used. Female practitioners gave expressive touches twice as much as their male counterparts (Morris, Henegar, Khanin, Oberle & Thacker, 2014).
The information is essential as it can help in understanding the all-inclusive aspects of occupational therapy. The use of expressive touch more frequently on patients can have positive effects and can be valuable to them and the therapy process. Since instrumental touch is what is used commonly by occupational therapists, especially in functional mobility, expressive touch has not been used as frequently as it should considering its benefits to patients.

The information shows that occupational therapists are comfortable with instrumental touch as opposed to expressive touch. Female practitioners are twice likely to use expressive touch compared to men practitioners. It shows that this issue needs to be addressed by training, occupational therapists on expressive touches which can play a big role in improving expressive touches during therapy (Morris et al., 2014).
References
Morris, D., Henegar, J., Khanin, S., Oberle, G., & Thacker, S. (2014). Analysis of touch used by occupational therapy practitioners in skilled nursing facilities. Occupational therapy international, 21(3), 133-142.