They give and maintain rehabilitative service for the patients or any people that have mental, physical, or emotional infirmities. There are several duties that the occupational therapist assistants do. This involves teaching and implementing ways that the injured patients should strengthen and stretch muscles with their guide. They are also helping developmentally disabled patients, teaching them the skills and some ways for them to work evenly with society. They must also be responsible in supervising their patients if they are following the treatment plans and plots. They are also responsible in making reports and keeping records of their patients for later reviews and other purposes. They help patients to act or do the daily routine of their life by providing means of do’s and don’ts. One example is, helping the patient learn how to move their body from the bed to the wheelchair or from the wheelchair to bed. This usually takes time for the patients to be adjusted. For the first days, weeks, and so on the patients need to be guided and supervised by the occupational therapists with their assistants.
Occupational therapy assistant employment will give you the opportunity and accessibility to work in a number of different sectors and environments. Most occupational assistants mainly work in hospitals, facilities of residential care, or occupational therapists’ offices. Other working environments the occupational therapy assistants have accessed are in family services, home health care agencies, agencies of the government, etc. According to statistics, the occupational therapy assistant jobs are usually found in hospitals, having 29% of the whole different environments of the workplace for occupational therapy assistants, 23% to occupational therapists’ offices, 21% to residential care, and 27% for those other environments and establishments. Occupational therapy assistant jobs have a salary ranging from $39,000 to $50,000 or more depending on the services that the occupational therapist assistants provide to the patients and pertaining to other special duties that they may do.
To become an occupational therapy assistant, you must have completion of a two-year associate degree or one-year certificate a college that is accredited or in any accredited technical school. Any field that is related to occupational therapy is accepted. These courses involve gerontology, rehabilitation theory, medical terminology, physiology and anatomy, psychology, etc. Most of the establishments also require basic experience of handling patients to be part of some of the most influential therapist agencies.
The main objective of the occupational therapy assistants is to make the patients live better day by the day with smiles on their faces. They all have the abilities to find ways and any procedures that could enhance their patients’ abilities and disorders.
Occupational therapy assistant jobs are expected to expand the employment on the next year due to the result of increasing number of injured, disabled, paralyzed people, etc. who need therapeutic services and cares. These jobs are expected to grow much quicker increasing the employment of these kind of jobs compared to some occupations next year. With the baby-boom generation, the growth of this kind of job will arise requiring these individuals to have therapeutic services and therapists for their own sake and living. Another thing that gives a valid reason that this kind of job, it is because the technology nowadays is still on going on making the equipments better prolonging the life of the patients who then need therapeutic treatments and services.
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