An occupational therapist job description explains the client’s occupations, and how they can contribute to promote their health, prevents injuries, or development of any disability. They help and influence the individual clients to achieve better state of independence, and have a fulfilled life that brings satisfaction and wellbeing. Occupational therapists create and control the client’s occupational performance and give them roles. They can work with a broader range of clients with different types of limitations, and carry them through different settings, day to day tasks that can fulfill and occupy their time. They are teaching the clients how to contribute to the community, they are working on improving the health of these people, and they give back the meaning and importance of the therapy. They are also achieving better productivity by giving leisure and rest time on the clients demand. Occupational therapy includes adapting to the environment, modifying the tasks and teaching the clients new skills, educating the family and the clients to participate to their fullest in the meaningful daily activities.
Good occupation improves the health and the well being of the clients. It creates structure and better organized time during the day, bringing back meaning to the individual’s lives and that way they can value themselves more.
Education and training
Occupational therapists need to get a master’s degree in occupational therapy. These programs take up to three years to complete. Some may take a doctoral degree that requires additional three years. Any of this choice requires a bachelor’s degree that includes biology, and physiology. The master’s and doctoral programs require supervised fieldwork, and volunteering in occupational therapy so they can gain experience before obtaining the license and registrations in order to start working. All states require the license that is gained after national examination. The examination can be taken after obtaining the degree and finishing the fieldwork requirements. Certification is granted to those that pass the NBCOT exam.
Working environment
An occupational therapist is working systematically through a sequence of actions that can form the occupational therapy. They should evaluate the outcomes based on extensive research that comes in stages. This occupation allows the therapists to work in different settings, and they enable work with different population of people. Their treatments include helping the clients to improve their mental health, productive aging with older adults that have some condition or a disease, clients with terminal illness, and rehabilitation. Their work may include travelling, and accepting some assignments that may last for a longer period of time away from the office. They are working full time, and only a few of the occupational therapists are working part time. To accommodate the client’s schedules, they can also work during weekends and holidays.
Salary
The median annual salary for occupation therapists in 2018 was $84,270 or $40.51 per hour. The employment for this occupation is projected to grow 29% in the next ten years, much faster than the average of all occupations. This occupation will continue to be an important part for many patients’ treatments.
