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To the Editor: Drs Boockvar and Meier¹ offered perspectives on palliative care. As they appropriately identified, among all of the other maladies seen at the end of life, the loss of independence in function of activities of daily living (ADL) is a cruel component in the deterioration of a person's well-being.

A patient in palliative care is vulnerable and will rely heavily on the physician for direction of care and recommendations for a dignified end-of-life experience. Although the authors did include recommendations for rehabilitation and physical therapy in their suggestions for how to address skill decline, they did not mention occupational therapy, a profession whose job definition is based on ensuring enhancement or maintenance of the highest possible level of independence in a patient's ADL. Occupational therapists' education includes both physical and psychosocial rehabilitation. As a patient's clinical status becomes progressively worse, and rehabilitation efforts to restore biomechanical skills become . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Daniel Cormican, OT/L
daniel.cormican@hsc.stonybrook.edu

Peggy A. Seidman, MD
Stony Brook University School of Medicine
Stony Brook, NY