Occupational Therapy Experience

Occupational therapy is the ability to provide help to others fairly and respectfully by doing everyday activities that can actually benefit the patients by improving the quality of his or her life. By doing so, this patient will be able to return to their loved ones and their daily activities. As a future occupational therapy, I will try my best to help these patients reach their goals of becoming dependent again. The passion that I have to help those that are in needs of treatments. There are several reasons that I choose to become an occupational therapist, among those reasons are the desire I have to help those that are in need of medical treatments. To continue, I wanted a career that would not take too long to complete and not have a long waiting list.

Ever since I was a child, people always asked me what I would like to be when I grew up. At first, I would always say that I wanted to become an engineer because of my love for hands-on learning and my exceptional problem-solving skills. However, when I grew older I found that similar spark of fascination in the medical field. I wanted to go into a profession where I could help others and use my love for problem solving and hands-on interest. This is when I became interested in occupational therapy and fell in love with the profession. Occupational therapy has several elements I find passion in such as, the ability to be hands on and help change other people’s lives in a positive manner. My goal in life is to become an occupational therapist and help others live independent lives again. As I work to obtain this goal, I am doing many things such as strengthening my writing skills because this major involves many various aspects of writing. To succeed in this field, one needs to be able to write strong research-based papers and cite all sources correctly. I am striving to master these skills in hopes that I can succeed in and accomplish my academic goals.

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,

The name of the society changed in 1923, due to hospitals wanting a national directory of qualified occupational therapists. There now was a minimal standard of training that had to be met before an individual was put in the directory (AOTA, 2009). The name was changed to the American Occupational Therapy Association. The American Medical Association worked with the American Occupational Therapy Association starting in 1933 on getting improved education programs for occupational therapists (AOTA, 2009).

To serve in the military is a noble act in one’s life to defend our nation and their freedoms. However, what does one do after the military to continue serving. This author states after serving 20 years in the United States Army as a human resources sergeant. He chose the profession of occupational therapy in a veteran’s hospital after he graduates as an Occupational Therapy Assistant (OTA) to serve the military and their families due to the fact that he is a veteran himself. After serving 3 tours in Afghanistan and understanding the effects of war does to Soldiers and their families. From reintegration after a deployment and transitioning out of the military and rejoining the civilian population. Find themselves under educated and unable

While shadowing occupational therapy professionals at Montgomery General Hospital, I gained much insight into the profession and the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of a COTA. The entire facility caseload consisted of geriatric patients, and many of the diagnoses were due to cognitive deficits or recent falls due to weak lower extremities. Diagnoses observed were dementia, CVA, a hip fracture, a total knee replacement, osteoarthritis of the shoulder, bilateral upper extremity/lower extremity weakness, and total blindness.

What intrigues me most in the field of Occupational Therapy is that I could make a positive impact in the lives of others. An occupational therapist can help a patient revitalize their physical, cognitive, or emotional disabilities, and develop or restore its functionality through continuous practice and effort. There is nothing more fulfilling for me than to see an individual achieving the greatest possible independence. This train of thought arose when I observed an occupational therapist working with my mother to return her arm to feeling normal again after her accident.

When I first considered occupational therapy, I was a sophomore in college sitting in my advisors office upset because I had no clue what I was doing with my life. I knew I wanted to be part of the medical field but couldn’t narrow it down any further. I had signed up for classes required for medical school, thinking those would cover my bases as I figured out what I actually wanted to do. My advisor and I were discussing my passion for helping people find ways to improve their lives and be independent. She kept encouraging me to look into occupational therapy because she thought it would be perfect for me.

Sneaking up on me, the end of my senior year is starting appearing, the most frequent question I get asked is,” What are you going to do after high school?” That question for me isn't a hard one--in fact, it is rather easy. At the age of 10, I knew I wanted to become some type of teacher, or someone in the medical field, I didn't know what exactly. At the age of 15 I was in an accident that helped me realize what I wanted to become.

I want to apply information learned from classroom settings in clinical settings. This semester, I learned how to complete an occupational profile and occupational activity analysis. I can apply this information in the summer when I shadow a school-based or hospital setting to understand approaches used in intervention to implement evidence-based and client centered practice. In addition, I plan to review course information I struggled with from the academic school year that includes pathologies and neurological disorders. I plan to practice transfers, goineometry, and manual muscle testing on friends to improve my rapport as a therapist.

Activities of daily living are the main focus of an Occupational Therapist. When people are doing their habits and routines do not think about the way they do something or why they are doing it in a certain way. An Occupational Therapist, however, will watch a person perform an activity and think on the steps he/she is taking and the reason behind the way they are performing it. For OTs, the way people perform a certain task or how they behave is extremely important because according to the theorists of behavior, motor control, and cognitive development each individual most perform and behave according to their stage in life. OT is all about client-centered care and if they would not know how a person is supposed to behave at a certain age how would they realize there is something wrong. In this paper, we are going to try to implement those theories in the behavior of a child.

I have always been attracted to the field of occupational therapy by the wide range of opportunities it encompasses. I am extremely interested in medicine and I wanted to work in a profession that would enable me to work with others. My dream has been to be in a health care profession where I could spend quality of life in all aspects. OT became the perfect fit. Occupational therapy is a profession that requires sensitivity, understanding, and compassion; all characteristics that I value tremendously.

Seeing and feeling like you have cured or helped someone is a very rewarding feeling. Occupational therapists fall under the health science career cluster. OT’s help troubled patients with their fine motor skills through therapeutic activities.

Occupational therapy enables people to live life to its fullest, no matter their age, history, or limitations. By majoring in the Human Biology, Health, and Society program in the College of Human Ecology, I am one step closer to achieving my dream of becoming an occupational therapist and fulfilling the college's mission of "Improving lives by exploring and shaping human connections to natural, social, and built environments." Through the College of Human Ecology, I will develop a strong background in human biology so that I can understand the physiological and biochemical aspects of health issues, and apply perspectives from the social sciences to those issues. These skills are pertinent to being a successful occupational therapist because the issues I will encounter are psychological, as well as biological. The Human Biology, Health, and Society major will give me the necessary skills I need to help patients make the imperative adjustments in their daily routines to live life as smoothly as possible. Knowing that I enabled someone to complete a task that I effortlessly do every day and take for granted is an immense honor because I know that I am impacting the world, one person at a time, by improving their life.

Section A: Background 1.) Motivation: At the age of 16 I was very interested in health and fitness. I taught myself everything I needed to know about nutrition by researching and buying as many books as I can. I was so passionate about nutrition that I could not wait to get into college and pursue by dreams as being a Nutritionist.