Occupational Therapy • Perth, Western Australia

Where Mind, Movement, and Life Connect

Occupational therapy for complex pain, neurological conditions, and functional recovery — bridging the gap between what your body can do in a clinic and what you need it to do in real life.

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AHPRA Registered
OTA Endorsed Mental Health OT
2019 WA Innovators in Practice
BSc (CS) • MOT
The Recovery Gap

Feeling Stuck in Your Recovery?

You’ve done the exercises. You’ve seen the physiotherapist. Your scans may even look “normal.” But something still isn’t right.

Pain persists, fatigue overwhelms, or your body simply won’t cooperate the way it should. You’re not imagining it. And you’re not alone.

The healthcare system is excellent at treating acute injuries. But for complex, chronic conditions, there’s often a gap. Patients have “healed” structurally — yet they remain functionally disabled, stuck in cycles of fear-avoidance, protective guarding, sensory overwhelm, or neurological disconnects.

Their brain is still protecting a body that is ready to move. This is the Recovery Gap — and it’s where Otivity works.

The Integration Bridge

We don’t treat the body or mind in isolation. We treat the connection between them.

By integrating Functional Capacity Assessments, evidence-informed physical therapies, and endorsed mental health strategies, we help you overcome the protective guarding and pain anxiety that keep you from doing what matters most.

“We help you transfer ‘Clinical Capacity’ — what you can do in a gym — into ‘Real-World Capability’ — living your life.”
Understanding Your Condition

Why Pain Persists When Your Body Has Healed

Your brain holds an internal map of your body. When pain persists or neurological conditions take hold, that map can become blurred, distorted, or fearful — even though the physical landscape has healed.

The Landscape

Your Body & Environment

Your muscles, joints, nerves, home, and workplace. After injury, the landscape often heals — tissue repairs, bones mend, scans come back “normal.” This is the domain of the Physiotherapist and Surgeon.

The Map

Your Brain’s Perception

How your nervous system interprets reality — your internal body map. In chronic pain or neurological conditions, this map becomes distorted. The brain flags safe movements as “Danger,” triggering guarding, spasms, or more pain.

Our Role

The Cartographer & Guide

We help you update your brain’s map to match the current landscape — gently retraining your nervous system to recognise that movement is safe again, so you can navigate life with confidence.

Our Methodology

The Four Pillars of the Integration Bridge

This isn’t just a list of services — it’s a methodology. Each pillar builds on the last, creating a pathway from understanding your barriers to overcoming them in real life.

01
Understand

Functional Capacity Assessment

Before we treat, we deeply understand. Our medicolegal-grade assessments go beyond listing what you can’t do — they analyse why you can’t do it: whether the barrier is physical pain, neurological fatigue, sensory overwhelm, or fear-avoidance. We observe you in real environments, providing the robust evidence that NDIS, insurers, and legal teams require.

02
Motivate

Purposeful Living

Life is the therapy. If your goal is to return to gardening, we use gardening movements as your therapy. If you want to cook for your family again, the kitchen becomes our treatment space. We rebuild your skills in the context of your actual life — making recovery practical, purposeful, and motivated by the things that matter most to you.

03
Retrain

Neuromotor Remapping & PNE

First, Pain Neuroscience Education helps you understand your body’s alarm system — that hurt does not always equal harm. Knowledge alone reduces the threat signal. Then, Neuromotor Remapping uses gentle, targeted movements and Graded Motor Imagery to teach your brain that movement is safe again. We recalibrate your safety settings so you can move without guarding.

04
Enable

Assistive Intelligence

Smart technology that serves you, not the other way around. Sensory AI — tools that see and speak for you. Cognitive Prosthetics — a second brain to handle the admin of life. Digital Therapeutics — immersive VR therapy to retrain the brain. Biofeedback — a dashboard for your energy, using wearables to monitor heart rate variability for pacing.

For Patients

Conditions We Work With

Every person’s experience is different, but many of our clients share a common feeling: being stuck. If standard approaches haven’t worked the way you hoped, you may find your situation here.

Chronic & Persistent Pain

“Nobody believes my pain is real. My scans are ‘normal’ but I’m still suffering.”

When pain continues long after tissues have healed, the problem has often moved from the body to the brain’s protective system. Your nervous system has become over-sensitive — a process called central sensitisation — raising the alarm on movements that are actually safe.

Our Approach

We validate your experience, explain the science, and use Neuromotor Remapping and Pain Neuroscience Education to recalibrate your nervous system’s protective settings so you can return to the activities and life you love. Including CRPS, Chronic Widespread Pain, and Phantom Limb Pain.

Functional Neurological Disorder

“My body won’t do what I’m telling it to do. They say nothing is wrong but something clearly is.”

FND is a signal issue — the connection between your brain and body isn’t transmitting reliably. The landscape (your body) is structurally intact, but the map (your brain’s control signals) has become disrupted.

Our Approach

We use sensory strategies, biofeedback, and graded movement to help restore the connection. We work on the signal, not just the symptom — gently rebuilding your nervous system’s ability to communicate clearly with your body.

EDS, Hypermobility & POTS

“I’m exhausted from holding myself together. People can’t see how hard my body works.”

Living with hypermobility or EDS means carrying an invisible burden. Your joints may be flexible, but your body works overtime just to hold itself together. The fatigue, the crashes, the unpredictability — it’s exhausting in ways most people can’t see.

Our Approach

We assess the hidden cognitive and physical cost of hypermobility. Using biofeedback technology — a dashboard for your energy — we help you monitor heart rate and energy levels in real time to pace effectively and avoid the crash cycle.

ASD, ADHD & Sensory Processing

“Life is too loud, too fast, and too disorganised. Even simple routines feel impossible.”

Executive function challenges — planning, organising, remembering, switching tasks — can make daily life overwhelming. Sensory overload compounds the problem, making it hard to filter what matters from what doesn’t.

Our Approach

We use Assistive Intelligence — smart scheduling agents and cognitive support tools — to manage the executive function load, combined with sensory integration strategies to help you filter the world on your terms.

For Health Professionals

Your Collaborative Partner for Complex Cases

Otivity focuses on patients who feel “stuck” despite adequate tissue healing or managed mood disorders. We position ourselves as your partner — not a replacement for existing care. We handle the barrier to your treatment.

GPs & Medical Practitioners

For persistent pain presentations that haven’t responded to pharmacological management or standard physiotherapy, Otivity offers a non-pharmacological, active self-management pathway. Using Pain Neuroscience Education and Neuromotor Remapping, we shift the patient’s locus of control from “Fix Me” to “I Can Manage This.”

A non-pharmacological pathway with clear clinical rationale and medicolegal-grade reporting.

Physios & Exercise Physiologists

If your patient’s nervous system flares when you increase load, or they’ve achieved mechanical range but can’t translate it to function — that’s our space. We focus on Neuromotor Safety: downregulating central sensitisation and fear-avoidance so your patient can return to your loading programme without crashing.

Your Phase 2 partner for complex cases. We handle the barrier to your treatment.

Support Coordinators & NDIS

Otivity’s Functional Capacity Assessments are forensic and medicolegal-grade, suitable for NDIS funding reviews, Administrative Appeals Tribunal proceedings, and complex plan reviews. We explicitly differentiate between “won’t do” and “can’t do due to neurological fatigue or central sensitisation.”

Forensic FCAs that provide the evidence needed for funding.

Lawyers & Insurers

Objective, defensible Functional Capacity Assessment reporting. We use observational analysis, physiological data, and standardised assessment tools to substantiate functional capacity, reducing long-term liability by focusing on evidence-based Return-to-Life outcomes rather than subjective self-report.

Objective, defensible reporting that reduces long-term liability.

Make a Referral via Lifeworks OT
Principal Occupational Therapist

Meet Ian Cheok

Ian Cheok — Principal Occupational Therapist at Otivity

Ian is an AHPRA-registered Principal Occupational Therapist with a clinical focus in complex pain management, neurorehabilitation, and functional assessments. He is driven by a passion to help people find answers when they feel stuck in the complexity of their recovery.

Uniquely, Ian holds a Mental Health Endorsement from Occupational Therapy Australia (OTA). This allows him to integrate Focussed Psychological Strategies — such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) — directly into physical rehabilitation to address barriers like fear-avoidance, pain catastrophising, and depression-related inertia.

Ian is also a strategist in Assistive Intelligence, drawing on his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Western Australia. He utilises Digital Therapeutics, biofeedback, and smart assistive technology to enhance client outcomes. He was the recipient of the 2019 WA Innovators in Practice Award for his work in digital therapeutics.

Ian works closely with you to address the specific barriers holding you back, so you can return to living — and not remain in therapy forever.

Credentials

Master of OT, Curtin University
BSc (CS), Uni of Western Australia
AHPRA: OCC0001786196
OTA Endorsed Mental Health OT
2019 WA Innovators Award
Curtin Head of School Award

Clinical Focus

Persistent & Chronic Pain
Functional Neurological Disorder
Neurorehabilitation
EDS & Hypermobility
Smart Assistive Technology
Functional Capacity Assessments
An Important Distinction

Mental Health OT vs Psychology

There’s often confusion about what a Mental Health Occupational Therapist does versus a Psychologist. Both are valuable — they serve different purposes.

What Otivity Does

Functional mental health support — addressing psychological barriers to doing things. Using ACT and CBT specifically to overcome barriers to function, somatic regulation, and behavioural activation.

We help you function and live a meaningful life despite how you feel. (Action & Participation)

Refer to a Psychologist For

Psychotherapy for primary psychiatric conditions. Deep trauma counselling for past events unrelated to your current physical condition. Processing complex emotional history.

They help you understand why you feel this way. (History & Emotion)

Both disciplines are essential. We work alongside psychologists — not instead of them.

Resources & Education

Understanding Is the First Step

These resources help you, your family, and your care team better understand the science behind persistent pain, neurological conditions, and the Otivity approach.

Guide

Understanding Your Pain

A plain-language introduction to Pain Neuroscience Education — why pain persists, what central sensitisation means, and how knowledge itself is part of the treatment.

Explainer

The Map & The Landscape

A visual guide to understanding how your brain’s internal body map can become blurred or fearful after injury, and what Neuromotor Remapping involves.

Information

What Is an FCA?

What to expect during a Functional Capacity Assessment, how it differs from standard assessments, and how results are used for NDIS, insurance, and legal proceedings.

Guide

Energy Pacing for EDS & POTS

A practical guide to using biofeedback and heart rate monitoring to manage energy, avoid crashes, and maintain function throughout your day.

Explainer

Assistive Intelligence

An introduction to Sensory AI, Cognitive Prosthetics, Digital Therapeutics, and Biofeedback — the four categories of smart technology we use.

Information

Understanding FND

A validating guide for people living with Functional Neurological Disorder — what it is, why standard tests miss it, and what treatment looks like.

More resources coming soon. Follow us on LinkedIn for updates.

Ready to Find a Way Forward?

Whether you’re a patient feeling stuck or a clinician with a complex case that needs a different approach, we’re here to help. Otivity operates via Lifeworks OT in Perth.

Book an Assessment Make a Referral
Get in Touch

Contact Otivity

All bookings and referrals are managed through our clinical partner, Lifeworks OT. You can also reach Ian directly for enquiries.

Phone

+61 467 711 564

By appointment only

Email

ian@otivity.com.au

Response within 2 business days

Book Online

Via Lifeworks OT →

Bookings & referrals

Clinic Locations & Hours

By appointment only. All bookings through Lifeworks OT.

Mt Lawley

150 Walcott Street
Mount Lawley WA 6050

Tuesdays — Clinic & Telehealth

Bibra Lake

10/14 Annois Road
Bibra Lake WA 6163

Fridays — Clinic & Telehealth

Home & Community

Perth metropolitan area

Mon & Thu — Book via Lifeworks OT