Question about specialties...

[Mikko]

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I am curious to know about some specializations in Occupational Therapy. I am curious to know what is your daily practice like in your specialty? What kind of therapy do you provide? I am very curious about Physical Rehabilitation specialization, and Mental Health. Do OT's in Physical Rehabilitation integrate more of what PT's do? Or is Physical Rehabilitation very focused on ergonomics and ADL's? And how about Mental Health? Do you act like a social worker, or Mental Health Councilor.

I understand that OT is SO broad, and it is very hard to definitively answer these questions, but I am just curious to know what is your daily life like in these Specializations.

-Mike

 

[lizzo76]

Hmmm... it doesn't seem like there are a lot of practicing OTs on here, so I will share what I have read and observed, which is limited. Some OTs kind of focus on everything - in my first shadowing experience, which I just had, the woman focused on both physical and mental rehabilitation (and sometimes they are related... for instance, the head injury which results in both memory problems and movement problems due to neurological injury.)

I guess the old description of OT vs. PT was "OT is upper body, PT is lower body." Apparently this is no longer true, but there does still seem to be more of a focus on the upper body for OTs, since the upper body is needed more for ADLs. My understanding, anyway, is that OTs who work in physical rehab still focus on ADLs while the PTs, who usually have significantly more training in how the body actually moves, still play a large role.

 

[Mikko]

Thanks Lizzo. I guess it is hard to really answer what these specializations do, or really perform through out the day. I am going to shadow some SLP's and OT's pretty soon. But I really want to know what do they think about specialization, and how much of a roll do they have in practicing OT. 🙂

-Mike