OT Practitioner – Flashcards

Occupational therapist (OT) Occupational therapy assistant (OTA) Occupational therapy or rehab aide

educated at professional level

educated at technical level

no prior specialized training; only on-the-job training

Occupational therapist (OT) Occupational therapy assistant (OTA)

Practitioner Educator Manager/Administrator Consultant Entrepreneur

-OTs & OTAs -Encompasses all aspects of managing a caseload

-Embedded in our role as a practitioner (to educate consumers) -Also, fieldwork educator, community opportunities, continuing education presenter, faculty member, academic fieldwork coordinator, site fieldwork coordinator, academic program director, etc.

-Oversees daily operations or entire department/program -Supervisor, manager, administrator, clinical specialist, team leader, etc.

Can provide a multitude of services from traditional OT services to recommendations to an organization.

-Self-employed in area of interest -Requires business savvy and strategic planning

-Defined as one who pleads for a cause or proposal -Requires knowledge of current health care trends, reimbursement issues, laws, social factors, cultural issues, etc. -Can advocate for clients or advocate in the political arena

Becoming more important as OTs are asked to use evidence-based practice

-A study by Wilding and Whiteford revealed many reasons why occupational therapy is difficult to explain. -They stated "the difficulties occupational therapists face as they try to describe and define occupational therapy can be traced back to a fundamental paradigmatic clash between biomedicine and occupational therapy" (p. 191, Wilding & Whiteford, 2007).

-places the focus on the disease, illness or injury. -They tend to work in a bottom up approach, meaning their work is focused first on the problem or the illness. -Medicine's view of health is the absence of disease. Therefore, medicine is successful if the disease is cured or managed.

-tends to operate from a top down approach focusing on the person and their occupational needs first and foremost. -After occupational therapists understand the person, they then look at how the disease, illness or injury affects the persons' abilities to perform their chosen occupations. -Occupational therapy's view of health is the ability to participate in desired occupations regardless of the presence of disease or injury.

The practice of occupational therapy means the therapeutic use of occupations, including everyday life activities with individuals, groups, populations, or organizations to support participation, performance, and function in roles and situations in home, school, workplace, community, and other settings.

"Occupational therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and well being through occupation. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement" (WFOT 2012).

"to identify the nature or essential qualities of"

-"to make plain or clear; render understandable" -Notice that I'm asking you to explain occupational therapy, not define it!

-We need to have broad, multiple definitions of occupational therapy practice to allow the range of what we do, from prevention to community-based practice to traditional medical model practice to nonmedical model practice so we don't necessarily have one definition of occupational therapy.... -We need to allow people the flexibility to describe occupational therapy in stories because people can relate to stories (p. 13).

-Stories begin with a statement that creates interest. -Provide specific examples of what we do. -Make your story conversational. -Ask the learner questions or check if they understand. -Watch their facial expressions or body language for interest

-Avoid Occupational Therapy lingo. Try to use words anyone can understand or make sure you explain works such as "occupation". -Do NOT use another profession to compare what we do. -I cringe when I hear, "we're sort of like PT, but not exactly". -We are an independent profession that often works independently of others on the traditional rehab team. -Don't limit your explanation to body parts or types of movement. -IE upper extremity or fine motor movement

-Keep in mind AOTA is made up of occupational therapists elected by us. Their goals are our goals. They act in the interests of occupational therapists nationwide. -AOTA's literature developed for the public relates the following themes. Make a goal of incorporating these themes into your explanation of Occupational Therapy. -Core concepts about occupational therapy -General knowledge about occupational therapy -The breadth of occupational therapy -Science driven profession -Try to use the term occupational therapy as much as you can rather than OT.

-Fall 2013, Sept to Dec -Eleven incoming occupational therapy students were recruited. -Encounter #1 11 students 10 public participants per student -Training 2 sessions 2 hours ½ group per session -Encounter #2 11 students 10 public participants per student

-Does using the constructivist approach result in students feeling more confident about their ability to explain the profession of occupational therapy? -Quantitative results indicate there was a difference between pre and post training. -Q1: I feel/felt comfortable explaining occupational therapy to people I didn't know. -Q2: I feel/felt confident that my explanation of occupational therapy covered the aspects of occupational therapy that are important to the profession. -The mean scores (8.0 for Q1 and 8.0 for Q2) of post 2nd encounter are significantly higher than that (6.0 for Q1 and 5.27 for Q2) of post 1st encounter for both questions. -The p values for t-test are 0.005 for Q1 and less than 0.001 for Q2.

Qualitative results indicate that the students perceived the training to be helpful. -Themes regarding the public encounter experience prior to training. -Difficult to organize explanation, lack of consistency, no depth to explanation, people weren't listening -"It was hard to organize a way in my head to say everything I know about what occupational therapy is involved in and then form those into coherent sentences to my participants. I needed to slow down but I got nervous about the fact that I am a student in this profession and can't explain my profession well to a stranger. " --"Everyone that I approached had a different perspective of occupational therapy so transitioning my explanation between people was difficult. At the same, I felt it was hard to be consistent with my explanation of OT."

-Training helped with depth, explanations were clear and relatable, smoother and more confident, listeners were engaged -"It was far easier to explain occupational therapy using a story and trying to relate it to the participants because there was a base to go off of. Instead of trying to "word vomit" everything I knew about occupational therapy and instead using a story and being ok with only covering certain examples and going narrow into detail and then expanding into a more broad context helped." -"Having the training helped and I felt I could cover all aspects of OT. I also felt I could go deeper with my explanation compared to the first encounter." -"Students were more engaged and asked more questions regarding occupational therapy." -One student reported that it felt too much like a script and made the explanation too long.

-Theory helps us describe, explain and predict human behavior. It guides our actions as occupational therapists. We combine theory with evidence and experience to guide our clinical reasoning and ultimately our client interaction. -A functional example: Good grooming is important to me. If I had a stroke and my R arm no longer had full range of motion, to help me gain ROM the Occupational Therapist would have me trying to comb my hair with assistance or adaptive equipment because the occupation of grooming is a powerful motivator for me. Occupation is the goal, the motivator and the means for achieving the goal.

-Occupation is powerful -Occupation gives meaning to life -Purposeful activity is motivating -Function is the goal/ people have a desire to be independent -Being functional increases quality of life

-We find out what is important to the person. (grooming) -We find out what deficits the person is experiencing that affect their ability to do the occupation. (decreased strength and ROM) -We remediate deficits. (regain strength and motion) AND/OR -We teach people compensatory skills when we can't remediate the deficit. (adaptive devices and modified environments) -We help people reach their functional goals. A functional example: If I had a stroke and my R arm no longer has full range of motion the OT helps me improve my wrist, elbow and shoulder ROM so I can comb my hair. If I will never get the motion back or it will be a long time, the OT will help me identify adaptive equipment to help me comb my hair on my own.

-Determine roles and occupations that are important to the client and their perception of problems they have with performance. -Evaluation of engagement in and ability to perform occupations. -Assessment of the abilities that affect the occupations and environmental assessment.

-Engage in Roles -Educate, Compensate, Adapt Occupations and Environments -Rehabilitate or Develop Client Abilities

-All ages -From the NICU to senior care facilities. All ages in between. -Any diagnosis. -Illness, injury, developmental problem. -If there is a functional problem, OT can help! Many Settings -Medical, community, mental health, schools, etc. A functional example: An occupational therapist may work with a person who has had a stroke beginning in the ICU of a hospital and continue helping them through to when they are in their home.

-We are required to have a minimum of a masters degree. -Many OTs have doctorate degrees. -Feel free to share that this is your path. -OTs must pass a national board exam before we can be licensed. -Research and science drive our professional decisions. -If they are STILL interested, take your story wider: -Explain the education. =A functional example: Health care is very complex. People who have had strokes or other illnesses and injuries are surviving with complex injuries and disabilities. Occupational therapists are required to have a minimum of a masters degree to practice. (I'm getting my doctorate at Creighton.)

-Don't try and include everything!! -We have to learn to be OK with meeting people (our audience) where they are at. That is what we do with our clients. -If they only have the time or patience to listen to something basic. That is OK. As long as it is something they can eventually repeat with accuracy, we can be happy. -Start with what that person cares about most and find common ground. -Start broad to create interest then narrow your explanation with a specific example to create understanding and get broader again as your listener learns.

Your explanation will change depending on who you are speaking to. Each family or team member will care most about what they are dealing with on a regular basis. Use an example they can relate to.

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