The OPTIMAL Theory

Introduction LINK to other page There is increasing evidence that motor learning principles can help to enhance skill acquisition and motor learning. When utilising motor learning principles in clinical practice, interventions are designed to promote long-term improvements in performance that result in learning. Physiotherapists create practice situations (e.g. variable vs constant, random vs blocked etc) and provide appropriate feedback (e.g. concurrent, summary, faded, bandwidth etc) in order to enhance the degree and the type of learning that occurs. WEB As Wulf and Lewthwait state, these factors are significant, but current approaches to motor learning do not consider recent evidence that highlights the importance of motivation and attention on performance and learning (WULF AND LEWTHWAITE). The factors that impact motor learning have been almost exclusively explored from a “motivationally neutral information-processing perspective.” W and L Based on this gap in the literature, Wulf and Lewthwaite developed the OPTIMAL Theory of motor learning, which can be used to harness patient motivation. OPTIMAL is an acronym, which stands for Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning. W AND L