Study Occupational Therapy

What is ​Occupational Therapy​?

Occupational therapy can be defined as the use of activities to aid recovery and rehabilitation either from a physical or mental illness.

Occupational therapists or OTs often work with people who have injuries, mental health problems, or disabilities. Whilst OTs do prepare programs for people to return to their occupations, the word “occupation” in this sense is used to as a meaningful activity for that individual.

Occupational therapists will often work within in a team of primary healthcare providers to bring a holistic approach. The team may include a combination of nurses, doctors, speech therapists, physical therapists, audiologists and clinical psychologists.

What's the Difference between Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy?

There is confusion as to the difference between an OT and a PT and whilst they do have similarities the main difference is that an OT focuses on helping an individual carry out tasks for daily living whilst a PT will focus on helping a client regain physical movement of a part of the body.

Both roles help people to recover after injury or illness and both will work one-on-one with a patient to help assist and improve their daily activities. It might be that a stroke patient works with a PT initially to regain muscular strength and then an OT to start relearning how to bathe, dress and walk again.

Careers in ​Occupational Therapy

To become an OT you’ll need to complete an undergraduate program in a subject such as sociology, psychology, kinesiology, anthropology, or biology and then you’ll need to attend one of the Occupational Therapist Schools typically for two years to complete a Masters. However, there’s also accelerated five-year study programs available and after either study route, you’ll need to pass a licensing exam to practice.

Occupational therapy is an exceptionally rewarding career. Typically, you’ll get involved with a patient and work with them on an ongoing basis to help them achieve realistic goals often after an illness or injury. Working one-on-one you’ll think out-of-the-box sometimes to provide an individual program of therapy to help your patients readjust to life and regain their independence.

Whether it’s helping a disabled child tie their shoelaces, a stroke patient prepare a snack or a veteran walk down the aisle to marry his fiancee, occupational therapists are in a unique position to build confidence and witness individuals achieve personal goals after adversity.

In short, your work is not just well-respected it’s life-changing and you’ll be there along the way giving encouragement and seeing the tremendous impact on people’s lives.

Whilst you are training to become an OT you’ll rotate and gather experience in various sectors of occupational therapy. Consequently, you can choose to specialize in an area that you excel and find particularly rewarding be it helping children, mental health patients, veterans or stroke patients.

In the US occupational therapists are in higher demand than in other countries due to the fact that the US has a larger number of military veterans requiring occupational therapy after combat. Median salaries are very competitive and are in excess of $80,000.  

If you’d like to find out more about occupational therapy then The American Occupational Therapy Association is a great resource or you could also try the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy. Study.com have some great information about study paths for OT’s which you can check out here. Or why not check out this great video which shows a day in the life of OT Lani Hessen.

Learning Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapy students need to learn medical terminology and concepts whilst honing problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Therefore, as an OT, each case you deal with is individual and different and you’ll need to draw on your base of anatomical and medical knowledge as well as practical experience.

Brainscape is an ideal supplementary tool for OT students. As you learn with Brainscape you’ll be able to master foundational medical knowledge and concentrate on perfecting your practical skills.

Occupational Therapy in Brainscape

To become an OT you’ll have to pass the NBCOT® Exam and to help you prepare you can use thousands of Occupational Therapy flashcards prepared by top students and professors. Students studying OT might also find other Brainscape pages useful such as medical terminology, pediatrics, anatomy, human biology, neuropsychiatry, and pathophysiology.

If it’s your dream to become an OT and you need great college grades then check out the AP Biology and AP Chemistry study guides.                                                                                           

Brainscape also gives learners the opportunity to use our software for free and prepare your own flashcards.

Learn faster with Brainscape

Brainscape has developed an educational tool that is proving game-changing for learners.

The confidence-based repetition system known as CBR developed by Brainscape is a combination of Active Recall, Metacognition, and Spaced Repetition which has outstanding results. With CBR you can learn twice as fast and remember longer allowing you to allocate your study time more effectively. Here’s how the CBR system works:

First of all, Brainscape uses a process called active recall as part of the CBR system. When you review flashcards within Brainscape the answers are not organized in patterns like some learning tools which means you will only recognize the answer. As you incorporate active recall, the neurons have to work hard to retrieve information and the memory trace is strengthened, effectively. As a consequence, the next time you try to retrieve the information later you’ll find if far easier.

Brainscape also uses spaced repetition like other educational tools which is a proven method of learning effectively. Incorporating this method of showing you easily-digestible pieces of information in the flashcard-format results in effective learning.

How Brainscape differs though is that it the Brainscape algorithm is uniquely powered by the learner’s metacognitive responses. After you have reviewed each flashcard in Brainscape, you’ll give a rating from 1-5 which reflects your understanding of the content. That’s all the information the algorithm needs to perfectly reposition the card in the deck so you never waste a moment of study time. A rating of “5” means that you’ll see the card infrequently, a “1” the most frequently, and as your understanding improves the card will be replaced perfectly back in the deck for optimal learning.

It’s this unique process that makes Brainscape the most powerful learning engine on the market today. Read on to find out how to get started.

How to get started

Getting started learning Occupational Therapy with Brainscape is super easy.

There’s loads of great content already created by top contributors whether you’re studying for your midterms or final exams. All the decks are labeled so just pick one that’s a good fit for you and get started right now.

If you’d like to create your own personal interactive learning catalog then just click on the “make flashcards” at the top of the page. Whichever, you choose you are sure to find Brainscape an unrivaled learning tool.

Brainscape is passionate about learning and we wish you all the best in your Occupational Therapy studies and your future career.