Day in the Life of an Occupational Therapy Assistant
Getting started on a career path as demanding and stressful as occupational therapy can be a brave decision to make. You’ll find yourself facing very varied and challenging days, taking on a large numbers of different projects from time to time. You’ll be working with people who have a variety of problems, from social issues to mental issues that can really leave you in a difficult situation. Whether it’s through an incident, through birth or through aging, these problems can vary drastically and therefore you need to be able to understand and help manage a variety of different health conditions for your patients.
This requires a huge amount of mental fortitude. You won’t have the time to learn the skills you need on the job, so you need to put in the hours about each occupational therapy patient you are dealing with and what their condition entails. As the assistant, you will need to be on-point and be able to work with the instructions being provided to you – sometimes at difficult-to-handle speeds. The needs of those in specific situations can make it very hard for you to manage the situation at first, but as the days go by you should be able to notice a significant improvement in your ability to handle key pressure situations.
You’ll typically be working varied hours depending on the needs of the person you are working with, and will need to be at the ready to deal with patients should you be notified of any requirements. In occupational therapy, whether you are in charge of the situation or are assisting another occupational therapy professional, you need to be able to handle problems when they come from seemingly nowhere – those in less fortunate can have erratic, unpredictable situations arise without warning.
Want to learn more about becoming an occupational therapy assistant? Visit our Careers page to learn more about salary, necessary education, and opportunities for growth.
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