SAKLAY: A Guide to an Assistive Technology Service Delivery Process in the Philippines

ABSTRACT

@#Occupational Therapy (OT) can help enhance human performance and well-being through assistive technology (AT). This entails guiding clients through the AT selection and acquisition process down to helping them integrate these tools’ use as supports to their day-to-day living. Unfortunately, the AT prescription and acquisition process can be tedious, costly, complicated, and uncoordinated in some countries such as the Philippines. AT service delivery is an undeveloped area of practice among Filipino occupational therapists due to the lack of local evidence-based research, practice models, and practical knowledge of the process. Moreover, access to AT is affected by economic factors and by some Filipinos’ negative attitudes towards assistive devices as being a validation of one’s incapacitation. The SAKLAY is a service delivery framework that was created to offer a practical and systematic guide to Filipino occupational therapists who render AT services for persons with disabilities (PWD) that takes into account the client’s needs, resources, abilities, and contexts.