Reviewer-1 Comments
Thank you for giving me the opportunity for reviewing the paper. The article looks excellent but need some revision. In other words, there is no description of what keywords were used, what databases were searched, what were the exclusion criteria, when was the period covered by the search, and how many records were extracted. These must first be resolved for publication.
Response: We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers who generously gave their time and expertise to provide constructive feedback on the earlier version of our manuscript. Their feedback was tremendously helpful in improving the quality of our work. We have addressed each of their specific comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript.
We deeply appreciate the reviewer’s very positive feedback on our manuscript and have made the necessary revisions to ensure that our manuscript meets the expected format. More specifically, we developed a new section, “Selection Methods,” to present the requested information. Please refer to the second and third pages of the revised manuscript to locate the newly developed section to address the reviewer’s concerns and suggestions.
Reviewer-2 Comments
The abstract would flow more logically if the sentences started more broadly and narrowed to the specific purpose of your study. In that order, the growing population of people living with dementia would come first as a global need for more OT interventions that are affordable, effective, and evidence-based. You might think of ordering the sentences this way:
1. The context or background information for your research; the importance of the topic under study
2. The central questions or statement of the problem your research addresses
3. What’s already known about this question, what previous research has done or shown
4. The main reason(s), the rationale, the goals for your research—Why is it important to address these questions? Are you, for example, examining a new topic? Why is that topic worth examining? Are you filling a gap in previous research? Applying new methods to take a fresh look at existing ideas or data? Resolving a dispute within the literature in your field?
5. Your research and/or analytical methods
6. Your main findings, results, or arguments
7. The significance or implications of your findings or arguments.
Here's an example that uses headings to identify the parts of the abstract, which also helps with the logical flow.
8. When explaining the purpose or goals of OT, I suggest staying close to the profession's own statements. Consider paraphrasing AOTA instead of US Bureau of Labor and Statistics...Occupational Therapy enables people to participate in daily life--regardless of age, ability, or challenging life circumstances. Occupational therapy intervention uses everyday life activities (occupations) to promote health, well-being, and participation by focusing on the things that clients want and need to do for themselves and with their families and communities.
https://www.aota.org/about/what-is-ot
9. The paper's topic is a good one--so good, in fact, there are many other authors investigating the same general thing (what constitutes 'good OT' with this population?), so every paper's research question(s) and aims must be very specific...check out these examples that narrow their focus for a systematic review to a certain type of OT intervention with specific outcomes, like this one looking at reducing behavioral problems and depression for clients with dementia
https://content.iospress.com/articles/neurorehabilitation/nre00779
Or a specific practice area like home health OT
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/11/e026308.abstract
In fact, there are so many systematic reviews on this subject, that this group did a systematic review on all those reviews
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jan.13362
10. Here's where we would need to see the methods used to conduct a systematic review of the literature. Check out this piece that compares systematic review with scoping review methods
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12874-018-0611-x
11. Not knowing how you went about searching for articles, I don't want to presume your approach, but as you continue to search the literature in this field, a few important writers on the subject are Gitlin, Burke, Kales, Blazek, Surr, and M.H. McKay. Check out the reference list at the end of this article for lots more current resources
https://journals-sagepub-com.ezp.twu.edu/doi/10.1177/00084174211048017
12. As I come to the end of this section, I appreciate the author's encouragement of additional specialty training for OT practitioners working with this population, but the section appears to be overlooking the array of existing certification programs. For example, OTs can advance their practice with training offered by the Alz. Assoc., National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners, Dementia Care Professionals of America (the educational branch of Alzheimer's Foundation of America), Positive Approach to Care (an OT-led organization training healthcare professionals worldwide), and Partnerships for Health (also OT-led organization providing training through corporate partnerships). So overall, there may still be gaps in training (I agree), but Rahja's (2018) and McGrath's (2014) studies alone are not enough to say that specialized training is limited.
Response: We deeply appreciate the reviewer’s very positive feedback on our manuscript and have made the necessary revisions to ensure that our manuscript meets the expected format. More specifically, we developed a new section, “Selection Methods,” to present the requested information. Please refer to the second and third pages of the revised manuscript to locate the newly developed section to address the reviewer’s concerns and suggestions.