There are a lot of people who want to recover from their illness that they experience in their daily lives. When we see people who have disabilities in their body, we pity them because there are only few people who experience those kinds of disabilities. But there are also people who help them recover from the impairments of their body such as occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants and many more.
What is an Occupational Therapy Assistant?
Occupational therapy assistants are the helpers of occupational therapists. This person is the one who provides rehabilitative services to those people who has mental, physical, emotional, or developmental impairments. This assistant helps the patients undergo rehabilitative exercises and activities in a treatment plan developed in collaboration with an occupational therapist.
Duties of an Occupational Therapy Assistant
- An occupational therapy assistant is the one who helps and assists patients in their daily exercises and activities they do in order to develop their self-abilities. Monitoring patient’s activities to make sure that it is performed correctly and writing up an observation and progress report about the patient’s improvement are also their duty.
- Teaching patients how to feed and dress themselves and also how to be independent in their lives are also some of their tasks.
- This person is the one who orders supplies and takes care of those equipments that will be used in therapy.
- He/she should balance his/her time. He/she can work part-time, full-time, nights and weekends.
- An occupational therapy assistant prepares the materials and equipments during treatment.
- He/she also perform clerical tasks such as scheduling appointments, and answering phones.
Work Condition of an Occupational Therapy Assistant
- An occupational therapy assistant usually works in a hospital or in a clinic.
- Taking care of patients is the duty of an occupational therapy assistant so he/she should be friendly and understanding to his/her patients because he/she often work on people who are in pain.
- He/she must have communication skills and interpersonal skills.
- This person should be clean and physically fit because he/she is dealing with sick people.
- An occupational therapy assistant should be willing to help others. He/she should have patience.
- He/she should also know how to balance his/her time.
Educational Requirements of an Occupational Therapy Assistant
To be an occupational therapy assistant you should have an associate degree that is related to health, science, crafts, and typing. Experiences in hospitals or summer camps are also useful. In most states Occupational Therapy Assistants must be licensed, certified, or registered.
Occupation and Progress of an Occupational Therapy Assistant
Having this kind of profession is actually fun. You should be a concrete thinker and a hard worker. You need to be so humble to your patients because you will find yourself like taking care of children. An occupational therapy assistant also should be playful.
This job is really good. It’s good to see a person who has a disability and become independent to his surroundings after you teach them. It is really a rewarding profession.