The success of the entire treatment program for the patient with TB or other long-term illness lies not only with the attending physician and nurse but also with the occupational therapist. The human problems that can be benefited by occupational therapy can be physiologic, psychological or both. To be most effective, occupational therapy must offer a program of activity to meet the orders in the prescription and to help the patients overcome the deficient factors themselves. The range of activities used in occupational therapy is as broad as the needs and the interests of the patients (example, developing a scrapbook for one who has to have absolute bed rest; specific work-outs for those whose muscles have become flaccid; vocabulary building, spelling and arranging for studies within the intellectual capacities of young patients whose education was interrupted by illness), the facilities available and the ingenuity and the initiative of the therapist. Likewise, occupational therapy for young children helps them adjust to life in the hospital,, improve adverse, psychological reactions and reduces behavioural problems. For adolescents, their interests are directed toward vocational training and often, actual training is initiated in the occupational therapy programme. Occupational therapy can dramatically shorten convalescence and improve the degree of recovery in patients.