Occupational Therapy Assistant

As the Occupational Health Technician, I persuaded the Navy Clinic to transferred the duties of tracking civilians and military personnel physical exams to the NASKW Safety Office. I have to created a PowerPoint presentation to provide training to the Safety office Admin staff and provided the training on Microsoft Access database. The training was unrelated to children.

The career path I have chosen to enter upon the completion of my college major is in Occupational Therapy Assistance. Occupational Therapy is the medical treatment for people who are limited by mental health problems, the aging process, physical injury or illness, and learning or developmental disabilities. An Occupational Therapist Assistant, or OTA, is the assistant to the Occupational Therapists, or OT, and assists him or her in providing Occupational Therapy treatments and procedures. An Occupational Therapist Assistant may also assist in the development of treatment plans, direct activity programs, carry out routine functions, and document the progress of patients’ treatments. OTs and OTAs work together with their patients, and their goal is have their patients regain the highest ability of functionality in their daily lives.

Twenty-six years ago I a 17-year-old boy joined the United States Army. I served my country faithfully for 22 years, two months and four days; I served in the Transportation Corps. My time in the army was a special period in my life. I gain a lot of life experiences as well as professional ones; the military shaped and molded me into the husband, father son, and brother that I am today. During my service, I grew up and learned several life lessons that would serve me well in and out of the army. To get a real understand on how the military shaped me into the person, I am today; I must first give you some insight into the person I was before I left for basic training. I graduated high school in 1991 just four months’ shy of my 18th birthday;

Occupational therapy assistant is my dream career. They help people live a normal life again without any assistance of other people. The help people enhance, improve, develop, and recover the skills use for working or doing daily average tasks. OTA’s usually work under the direction of occupational therapists, and they still get involved with providing therapy for patients. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, occupational therapy assistants help patients do therapeutic activities. For example, they help patients to stretch or do other exercises. OTA’s also help children who have developmental disabilities to play activities that helps stimulate coordination and learn to socialize. They teach disable people to use special equipment,

Throughout this course, my mind was opened to several healthcare careers which I was unaware of before. For the careers that I did know about, this course still did a great job at informing me of the professions on a deeper level. After reviewing the lectures and careers, I feel strongly about pursuing a career in Occupational Therapy. More specifically, I want to become an Occupational Therapy Assistant. This was a career that I had in mind when I began the course and I have been interested in it for about two years now. Occupational Therapy Assistants need to be sociable, compassionate, flexible, and enjoy problem solving. I believe I will enjoy this profession because my personality matches with all of these things.

The Psychology Major’s Handbook by Tara L. Kuther gives a list of positions that Psychology majors can obtain with a bachelor’s degree. This list is helpful because only one-fourth of psychology majors go to graduate school immediately following graduation (Kuther, 2015, p. 170). Within this list, the occupation that caught my eye was that of an Occupational Therapist. Though one cannot be an Occupational Therapist with only a bachelor’s degree, one can be an Occupational Therapist Assistant (OTA) with a bachelor’s degree. With other training and licensure, an individual with a bachelor’s in psychology can work in the field of Occupational Therapy because psychology teaches one human service skills. Employers may not understand why a psychology major would be eligible for a job like Occupational Therapy; thus it is the responsibility of the applicant to explain their eligibility for the desired position (Kuther, 2015, p. 171).

social awareness and social skills (See appendix A). The OTS scored 31 on self-awareness. The

“What if there was a job that allowed someone to have endless flexibility and creativity; a profession that is respected and is in overwhelming demand... Most importantly, wouldn’t it be nice to find a job in which you could make an impact, big or small, on the lives of each individual person you worked with? I found this job and that is why I decided to pursue a degree in occupational therapy" (Springer, J., 2015). This testimonial comes from a practicing occupational therapist who has found value in his life's work. Occupational therapy is not a job where "one size fits all"; there are many different demographics of people who need occupational therapy in different environments. Although, all occupational therapists have the same skills

When I graduated from high school I originally planned on being an Athletic Trainer. After being accepted into not only Shenandoah University but the pre-admit AT program which is a three plus two program, I was going to graduate with a masters degree in five years. In my sophomore year at Shenandoah I realized that I did not want to be an Athletic Trainer. I began looking into what careers were out there that I could pursue with an Exercise Science degree. After talking my advisor, who was an athletic training for most of her career, she asked if I ever looked into Occupational Therapy. Once looking into the career I talked to my Aunt who worked in many fields as an Occupational Therapist and learning more about the career I was set on pursuing

The day I attended physical therapy for a broken arm was the day I wanted to get into physical therapy. It taught me techniques to help me regain control of something that I have lost temporary of like an arm or leg. That day when I attended physical therapy was the day my life changed and only for the better, I hope. This is a career which I want to pursue and become part of. To start my career I would like to become a physical therapist assistant to learn the fundamentals and then later, move to become a physical therapist, and maybe have someone assist me. But to become a physical therapist assistant or PTA one must complete a program and have excellent grades to achieve this goal. The physical therapy assistant is a graduate of a

Anytime one is dealing with a transition in their life, there will always be the unknown. That’s exactly how I felt when retiring from the United States Army. After being with one career for 21 years of my life, that’s all I really knew. I faced many challenges when dealing with “Life after the Military”. The military has provided a program that helped me deal with my transition from soldier to civilian life. Getting out of the Military after a long period of time leads to so many uncertainties. Not knowing if you will get a Job immediately afterwards or having the proper background for the job you really want to do. These are all concerns that leads to anxiety. However, the Military has implemented a program that will help Soldiers transition to the next stage in their life.

There are many essential qualities that successful Occupational Therapy Assistant’s (OTA) possess. The qualities that are most important are compassion/empathy, good listening skills, and patience. These attributes will put you on the path of being the best OTA you can be.

There is a relationship between research, practice and academics because each one are interrelated with the other one to develop advanced professional practice. There is a growing body of research, and evidence based findings inside and outside from our profession that needs to be scattered. Academics are responsible to teach to the new professionals the resources and evidence-based knowledge available to develop Occupational Therapy practitioner’s vanguard of new professional advances. The profession is active performing studies and developing new evidence to based our therapy interventions. We are seeking to obtain new knowledge to maximize our interventions and to deliver responsible and quality services. It’s necessary developing partnerships

Through experience, I learned how to interact with patients and family members as an occupational therapist in sub acute setting, espeicailly how to deliver message to family member professionally. I Also, I witness the necessity of cooperation in PT/OT/SLP and other health professionals to make optimal outcome of patients. I have learnd how restorative FOR, biomechanical FOR, rehabilitative FOR, PNF are being utilized into therapy sessions to patients with orthopedic, neurological conditions.

To get into the Occupational Therapy Assisting program at Rhodes State you have to job shadow 40 hours in two different clinical settings. For my first clinical hours I was job shadowing at a nursing home that had an Alzheimer's wing. A patient we had came from that wing and was acting out. The patient kept telling us that she was going home today, when he or she was never going to go home. He or she kept threatening to walk home, which was over an hour away, if we would not like him or her go. He or she was on a NuStep machine that had a display board on it with numbers. He or she kept telling everyone to come over and read it for him or her. He or she would not stop asking about it so a therapist put blanket over the display. That was