Intervention
What the domain tests
Intervention items ask you to select, grade, and justify a plan that is occupation-based, client-centered, and matched to current capacity. A complete plan states measurable client-owned goals, the intervention approach (remediate, compensate, adapt, educate, advocate), specific methods, dosage, and discharge or transition criteria.
Concepts to own
Distinguish levels of intervention: occupation-based activity, purposeful activity, preparatory methods (exercise, modalities, splints, positioning), education and training, and advocacy. Preparatory methods are supporting players, must link to an occupational goal, and should be time-limited. Remediation versus compensation follows from prognosis, client preference, and context.
Know motor learning: task-specific practice, blocked versus random practice, whole versus part task, massed versus distributed practice, mental practice, and knowledge of results versus knowledge of performance. Practice should resemble the target task, and feedback should fade as skill consolidates. Errorless learning suits memory impairment.
Traps
Choosing a preparatory method when the stem asks about improving occupational performance; over-grading so the client fails; keeping a task so easy that no learning occurs; ignoring fatigue, cognition, or the home environment; recommending constraint-induced movement therapy for a client without active wrist and finger extension; imposing a compensatory strategy when the client can still recover function and prefers to try.
Rule of thumb
If the goal is occupational performance, the intervention should look like the occupation, or be explicitly justified as a time-limited bridge to it. Grade along one dimension at a time (assistance, time, complexity, objects, environment) to hold the just-right challenge.
Worked example
A client with moderate dementia wants to make his own breakfast and is unsafe at the stove. The right plan is a structured routine with task setup, visual sequencing cues, and errorless practice on safe steps, with the caregiver handling the unsafe portion, rather than repeated kitchen-safety quizzes or a lecture on stove safety.