Occupational Therapist Assess, plan, and organize rehabilitative programs that help build or restore vocational, homemaking, and daily living skills, as well as general independence, to persons with disabilities or developmental delays. Use therapeutic techniques, adapt the individual's environment, teach skills, and modify specific tasks that present barriers to the individual.
Occupational Therapist is Also Know as
In different settings, Occupational Therapist is titled as
- Assistive Technology Trainer
- Certified Hand Therapist (CHT)
- Early Intervention Occupational Therapist
- Home Health Occupational Therapist
- Industrial Rehabilitation Consultant
- Occupational Therapist (OT)
- Pediatric Occupational Therapist (Pediatric OT)
- Pediatrics and Acute Care Occupational Therapist
- Registered Occupational Therapist (OTR)
Education and Training of Occupational Therapist
Occupational Therapist is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Occupational Therapist
Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Education Required for Occupational Therapist
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
Degrees Related to Occupational Therapist
- Bachelor in Occupational Therapy/Therapist
- Associate Degree Courses in Occupational Therapy/Therapist
- Masters Degree Courses in Occupational Therapy/Therapist
Training Required for Occupational Therapist
Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Occupational Therapist in different industries are
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Physical Therapists
- Recreational Therapists
- Physical Therapist Assistants
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Psychiatric Technicians
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Rehabilitation Counselors
- Low Vision Therapists, Orientation and Mobility Specialists, and Vision Rehabilitation Therapists
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Nurse Practitioners
- Acute Care Nurses
- Registered Nurses
- Psychiatrists
- Family Medicine Physicians
- Respiratory Therapists
- Clinical Neuropsychologists
What Do Occupational Therapist do?
- Complete and maintain necessary records.
- Evaluate patients' progress and prepare reports that detail progress.
- Test and evaluate patients' physical and mental abilities and analyze medical data to determine realistic rehabilitation goals for patients.
- Select activities that will help individuals learn work and life-management skills within limits of their mental or physical capabilities.
- Plan, organize, and conduct occupational therapy programs in hospital, institutional, or community settings to help rehabilitate those impaired because of illness, injury or psychological or developmental problems.
- Recommend changes in patients' work or living environments, consistent with their needs and capabilities.
- Consult with rehabilitation team to select activity programs or coordinate occupational therapy with other therapeutic activities.
- Help clients improve decision making, abstract reasoning, memory, sequencing, coordination, and perceptual skills, using computer programs.
- Develop and participate in health promotion programs, group activities, or discussions to promote client health, facilitate social adjustment, alleviate stress, and prevent physical or mental disability.
- Provide training and supervision in therapy techniques and objectives for students or nurses and other medical staff.
- Design and create, or requisition, special supplies and equipment, such as splints, braces, and computer-aided adaptive equipment.
- Plan and implement programs and social activities to help patients learn work or school skills and adjust to handicaps.
- Lay out materials such as puzzles, scissors and eating utensils for use in therapy, and clean and repair these tools after therapy sessions.
- Advise on health risks in the workplace or on health-related transition to retirement.
- Conduct research in occupational therapy.
- Provide patients with assistance in locating or holding jobs.
- Train caregivers in providing for the needs of a patient during and after therapy.
Qualities of Good Occupational Therapist
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
Tools Used by Occupational Therapist
- Adaptive cutlery
- Adjustable beds
- Alternative computer keyboards
- Braille printers
- Computer switch interfaces
- Drill presses
- Electric knives
- Electric wheelchairs
- Electronic blood pressure units
- Exercise balls
- Gait and transfer belts
- Goniometers or arthrometers
- Hoists
- Joy sticks
- Laptop computers
- Lathes
- Lift chairs
- Looms
- Manual blood pressure cuffs
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Orthotics
- Personal computers
- Personal digital assistants PDA
- Portable scanning pens
- Power drills
- Power sanders
- Pressure care garments
- Pulleys
- Resistive exercise bands
- Saws
- Scooters
- Sewing machines
- Single-cut mill saw files
- Soldering irons
- Splints
- Switch use tools
- Tongue switches
- Trackballs
- Trackpads
- Video cameras
- Video magnifiers
- Voice output communication aids
- Weights
- Wheelchairs
- Wheeled walkers
- Wobble switches
Technology Skills required for Occupational Therapist
- Bizmatics PrognoCIS EMR
- Casamba Smart
- Computer drawing software
- Crick Software Clicker 4
- Duxbury Braille Translator
- eClinicalWorks EHR software
- Email software
- Fifth Walk BillingTracker
- FileMaker Pro
- HMS
- Internet browser software
- Language arts educational software
- Lexrotech LxPediatric
- Math educational software
- Mayer-Johnson Boardmaker
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Word
- Music software
- OpenOffice WRITER
- Physical education educational software
- Rehab Documentation Company ReDoc Suite
- Science educational software
- Screen magnification software
- Screen reader software
- Social studies educational software
- Special education educational software
- Speech recognition software
- Spreadsheet software
- Synapse Adaptive Connect Outloud
- Tactile graphic production kits software
- Text reader software
- Text scanning software
- Text to speech software
- Word processing software