Definitions: The following terms shall have the meaning set forth below, unless the context

Definitions: The following terms shall have the meaning set forth below, unless the context the context otherwise requires: 1. Board shall mean the Mississippi State Board of Health. 2. Council shall mean the Mississippi Advisory Council in Occupational Therapy. 3. License shall mean the document of licensure issued by the Board. 4. Act shall mean the "Mississippi Occupational Therapy Practice Law" sections 73-24-1 et seq. of Mississippi Code of 1972, annotated. 5. Examination shall mean the examination approved by the Board. 6. Department shall mean the Mississippi State Department of Health. 7. The Practice of Occupational therapy means the therapeutic use of everyday life occupations with persons, groups, or populations (clients) to support occupational performance and participation. Occupational therapy practice includes clinical reasoning and professional judgment to evaluate, analyze, and diagnose occupational challenges (e.g., issues with client factors, performance patterns, and performance skills) and provide occupation-based interventions to address them. Occupational therapy services include habilitation, rehabilitation, and the promotion of physical and mental health and wellness for clients with all levels of ability-related needs. These services are provided for clients who have or are at risk for developing an illness, injury, disease, disorder, condition, impairment, disability, activity limitation, or participation restriction. Through the provision of skilled services and engagement in everyday activities, occupational therapy promotes physical and mental health and well-being by supporting occupational performance in people with, or at risk of experiencing, a range of developmental, physical, and mental health disorders. a. Evaluation of factors affecting activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), health management, rest and sleep, education, work, play, leisure, and social participation, including 1. Context (environmental and personal factors) and occupational and activity demands that affect performance. (i) Performance patterns including habits, routines, roles, and rituals; (ii) Performance skills, including motor skills (e.g., moving oneself or moving and interacting with objects), process skills (e.g., actions related to selecting, interacting with, and using tangible task objects), and social interaction skills (e.g., using verbal and nonverbal skills to communicate); (iii) Client factors, including body functions (e.g., neuromuscular, sensory, visual, mental, psychosocial, cognitive, pain factors), body structures (e.g., cardiovascular, digestive, nervous, integumentary, and genitourinary systems; structures related to movement), values, and spirituality; b. Methods or approaches to identify and select interventions, such as; (i) Establishment, remediation, or restoration of a skill or ability that has not yet developed, is impaired, or is in decline; (iI) Compensation, modification, or adaptation of occupations, activities, and contexts to improve or enhance performance; (iii) Maintenance of capabilities to prevent decline in performance in everyday life occupations; (iv) Health promotion and wellness to enable or enhance performance in everyday life activities and quality of life; (v) Prevention of occurrence or emergence of barriers to performance and participation, including injury and disability prevention; c. Interventions and procedures to promote or enhance safety and performance in ADLs, IADLs, health management, rest and sleep, education, work, play, leisure, and social participation include but are not limited to: (i) Therapeutic use of occupations and activities; (ii) Training in self-care, self-management, health management (e.g., medication management, health routines), home management, community/work integration, school activities, and work performance; (iii) Identification, development, remediation, or compensation of physical, neuromusculoskeletal, sensory–perceptual, emotional regulation, visual, mental, and cognitive functions; pain tolerance and management; praxis; developmental skills; and behavioral skills; (iv) Education and training of persons, including family members, caregivers, groups, populations, and others; (v) Care coordination, case management, and transition services; (vi) Consultative services to persons, groups, populations, programs, organizations, and communities; (vii) Virtual interventions (e.g., simulated, real-time, and near-time technologies, including telehealth and mobile technology); (viii) Modification of contexts (environmental and personal factors in settings such as home, work, school, and community) and adaptation of processes, including the application of ergonomic principles; (viii) Modification of contexts (environmental and personal factors in settings such as home, work, school, and community) and adaptation of processes, including the application of ergonomic principles; (ix) Assessment, design, fabrication, application, fitting, and training in seating and positioning, assistive technology, adaptive devices, and orthotic devices, and training in the use of prosthetic devices; (x) Assessment, recommendation, and training in techniques to enhance functional mobility, including fitting and management of wheelchairs and other mobility devices; (xi) Exercises, including tasks and methods to increase motion, strength, and endurance for occupational participation; (xii) Remediation of and compensation for visual deficits, including low vision rehabilitation; (xiii) Driver rehabilitation and community mobility; (xiv) Management of feeding, eating, and swallowing to enable eating and feeding performance; (xv) Application of physical agent and mechanical modalities and use of a range of specific therapeutic procedures (e.g., wound care management; techniques to enhance sensory, motor, perceptual, and cognitive processing; manual therapy techniques) to enhance performance skills; (xvi) Facilitating the occupational participation of persons, groups, or populations through modification of contexts (environmental and personal) and adaptation of processes; (xvii) Efforts directed toward promoting occupational justice and empowering clients to seek and obtain resources to fully participate in their everyday life occupations; (xviii) Group interventions (e.g., use of dynamics of group and social interaction to facilitate learning and skill acquisition across the life course). 8. Occupational therapy intervention includes: a. remediation or restoration of performance abilities that are limited due to impairment in biological, physiological, psychological or neurological processes; b. adaptation of task, process or the environment, or the teaching of compensatory techniques in order to enhance functional performance; c. disability prevention methods and techniques which facilitate the development or safe application of functional performance skills; or d. health promotion strategies and practices which enhance functional performance abilities. 9. Occupational therapy service includes, but is not limited to: a. evaluating, developing, improving, sustaining or restoring skill in activities of daily living (ADLS), work or productive activities, including instrumental activities of daily living (IADLS), play and leisure activities; b. evaluating, developing, remediating or restoring physical, sensorimotor, cognitive or psycho social components of performance; c. designing, fabricating, applying or training in the use of assistive technology or orthotic devices, and training in the use of prosthetic devices; d. adaptation of environments and processes, including the application of ergonomic principles, to enhance functional performance and safety in daily life roles; e. application of physical agent modalities as an adjunct to or in preparation for engagement in an occupation or functional activity; f. evaluating and providing intervention in collaboration with the client, family, caregiver or other person responsible for the client; g. educating the client, family, caregiver or others in carrying out appropriate nonskilled interventions; h. consulting with groups, programs, organizations or communities to provide population-based services; or i. participation in administration, education, and research, including both clinical and academic environments. 10. Occupational Therapist means a person licensed in this state to practice occupational therapy as defined in these regulations and whose license is in good standing. 11. Occupational Therapy Assistant means a person licensed to assist in the practice of occupational therapy under the supervision of or with the consultation of a licensed occupational therapist and whose license is in good standing. 12. Occupational Therapy Aide means a person who is not licensed in the field of occupational therapy and who assists occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants in the practice of occupational therapy under direct supervision. The occupational therapy aides' activities require an understanding of occupational therapy. 13. Person means any individual, partnership, unincorporated organization, or corporate body, except that only an individual may be licensed under this chapter. 14. Direct supervision means the daily, direct, on-site contact at all times of a licensed occupational therapist or occupational therapy assistant when an occupational therapy aide assists in the delivery of patient care. 15. Association shall mean the Mississippi Occupational Therapy Association. 16. Dry needling shall mean a physical agent modality that aims to restore and/or optimize the neuro- muscular-skeletal systems. Dry needling involves the use and insertion of solid filiform needles for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain and soft tissue dysfunction by increased blood flow, decreased banding, decreased spontaneous electrical activity, biomechanical and central nervous system changes.