Being an occupational therapist is a career path that will allow you to assist with patients’ care and day to day living. If you love to make a difference in people’s lives, then this is the job role that would suit you. In this guide, you will see what occupational therapy is about and why it is a fantastic job to get into. 

What your typical day will look like 

Each day you will be working with patients who find it troublesome to complete certain activities. Most patients could find these difficult due to a disability, illness, trauma, ageing as well as various long term conditions. 

You will often have similar routines of the day, but they can differ massively depending on the circumstances of each patient. Having therapy sessions can help someone adapt to life after major surgery, mental health or learning disabilities are a few examples of issues you may need to work with so changing to each patient is vital to help them as one method will not always work successfully. If they have lost talents and strengths that they once had, then helping them to regain them again can be very rewarding. 

With the ever-changing world of technology, you can incorporate different assistive technology that has helped various patients to gain confidence. Suggesting ways to improve positivity and keeping busy in cases of issues such as depression is an important responsibility you will need to put together as it can help situations like this getting worse.  

Depending on each condition, you may need to find a way to switch up their environment at home or work to make it easier for them. Setting goals and finding procedures to reach them, give your patients something to work towards and concentrate on. After reaching their target, this will allow them to relax and feel accomplished, which will push them to make more goals to succeed in. 

How to become an occupational therapist 

Although becoming an occupational therapist requires a lot of work, it can be gratifying. You will need to train and study at an undergraduate degree level. This program could be an excellent opportunity to do. A relevant degree at masters can also help. Research on where you would like to study as each place will have different requirements to work towards. Here, you will learn each method that could work for various issues that you can come across while having opportunities to put them into practice. If you have patience, problem-solving skills and excellent communication skills, then this job could be for you. 

Hopefully, with this guide, you will have an insight into occupational therapy and how rewarding it can be to help patients to regain their confidence and get their lives back on track. Your days would include one to one’s with clients to find different ways to help with each issue that you may come across by using technology, switching their environments and other useful techniques. 

Occupational therapy programs can help you to get closer to your dream job role as well as studying to an undergraduate degree level.