What is Neuroplasticity?

The ability of nerves to make different and new connections depending on what they experience. In life, for you to feel a sensation, a nerve has to fire. For you to know what to do with that sensation, that firing nerve has to be connected to a group of muscles, and it needed to go through a process of deciding this is important and/or this isn’t important. You need to respond fast/ slow, and that whole connection piece gives an outcome. Occupational Therapy deals with outcomes, but we also have to deal with input so that we can get a specific outcome. Neuroplasticity allows an OT to control what kind of outcome you get, to change that outcome and to strengthen desired outcomes by influencing any part of the process.