What are Occupational Therapists?

Employment for occupational therapists is now growing faster and stronger than the usual and average job opportunities. Along with the increased of job opportunities for occupational therapy, it only shows that the number of elderly are growing as well.

Being an occupational therapist, you need to be licensed, have a master’s degree in occupational therapy, have a 6-month experience of supervised fieldwork, and lastly you should have passing scores both on the state and national examinations. Occupational therapists are the ones responsible on taking supervisory roles. However, they are given the aides and assistants to help them to work even closer with the clients. These aides and assistants are still under the guidance of the occupational therapists. Apparently, almost 50% of the population of the working occupational therapists is only working part time. Occupational therapists are those who can help people to improve their abilities in performing tasks in their working and living environments. They even work with individuals who are suffering from conditions of emotional, developmental, physical and mental disability. They also use treatments in developing, maintaining, and recovering the daily work and living skills of their patients. Occupational therapists do not only help their patients in improving their reasoning abilities and basic motor functions but also helps in compensating the patients’ permanent loss of function. The objectives of every occupational therapist have something to with their patients’ satisfying, productive and independent lives.

Occupational therapists assist their patients in performing all types of activities and daily needs such as using a computer, eating, cooking, and dressing. They also teach patients on physical exercises that can be used to increase dexterity and strength, and other activities that can improve the ability or visual acuity in discerning patterns. Once sample of this if a patient experiences a short-term memory loss, they should be encouraged in making lists to aid recall. Another sample is patients having coordination problems they should be given assigned exercises to improve their hand and eye coordination.

Nowadays, occupational therapists are now using some computer programs in helping their clients to improve their skills on perceptual, problem-solving, abstract-reasoning, decision-making, sequencing and coordination, which all of which are very important for one’s independent living. However, there are patients with muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injuries that require special instructions coming from occupational therapists. These special instructions are given to them are used to master their daily tasks. These special instructions are demonstrated by occupational therapists on their patients utilizing adaptive equipment such as dressing aids, eating aids, orthoses, and wheelchairs. Occupational therapists are also the designing and building the special equipments used by occupational therapy clients at their work or home environment as well as other computer-aided adaptive equipment. They also teach the patients on how to use the equipment in improving their communication and controlling other various situations within the environment. Also, occupational therapists treat patients whose abilities and functions at work have been impaired. With these, occupational therapists collaborate with the employer and client to modify the work environment for the successful completion of work.