Occupational Therapy Reflective Essay

occupational Therapy Reflective Es imagineIm an occupational therapist, an obscure profession if on that point ever was one(a).We be few and far between, whitethornbe beca practice we entertainchosen toserve people with disabilities. both disabilities.Not a glamorous revokeeavour, nor a lucrative one.And I maintain serve because we deem that in helping we date stamp weakness,while in servingwe see wholeness.Weve opted for wholeness nearly a century agoand pee been at odds with the system ever since.We dont int dismiss people, you see with them,we simply sweat to happen a way tomeaning,balance, andjustice.I chose occupational therapy because it blendsscienceandhumanism,intellectual rigourandcompassion. Rachel Thibeault (fromoccupational Therapists with emerge Borders)1Occupational Therapy First Year Portfolio TaskA course of instruction ago, I was in my final year at high in compose and perusing for finals. Now, I am a stolon year Occupational Therapy (OT) student at t he University of Witwatersrand who is belongting ready for her end of year exams, shuddery stuff But I roll in the hayt complain when I theorize back on how much Ive catch outed this ancient year and how it has impacted me when I think al more or less my future. At the loading of it, this year has taught me that OT is non what I thought it was. Yes, I had an idea of what an OT does in terms of activities but I was non aw be of what it would take to get to the selfsame(prenominal) point as the OTs who I had observed during my condemnation telephone circuit shadowing in my matric year.Ive learned a masses during this first year and I straight stand a deeper recogniseing of the career path that I am pursuing- what it will have from me, how it will influence the lives of early(a)s done and through me, the scope of OT and what I urgency to greet to not only be good as an OT, but to be a great OT. It has me anxious ab bulge out the mountainous path looming forrad a nd passionate to reach the finish line every(prenominal) at the same epoch. In talking about the mountains that I see rising ahead(predicate) of me, I thought that I would reflect on the mountains that I have already crossed and how they impacted my grasp of OT and how it helped me to link the conjecture to the clinical uses. The first mountain was Problem found Learning (PBL) which actually grounded me in order to prepare me for the much larger mountain Fieldwork.One of the first lectures that we had was on PBLs, problem based learning. And to say that I took the concept for allow and wrote PBLs off as magazine-wasters would be better. So when I complete just how helpful and beneficial PBL groups could be, I was all in. PBLs have taught me the importance of working as a group, time-management, designation of tasks, following reliable steps in order to reach a set endeavor and understanding different concepts from a first-look evaluation and then comparing this to theory or researched constructs.6 This form of methodology can be defined as a teaching and learning strategy where students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving.6 During this process students learn about thinking strategies and lucre knowledge and insight into the topic. PBL teaches us to think critically rather than to draw superficial conclusions. Our first problem in PBL hustling me for what OT is, the background into OT and the professional environments of an OT.PBL taught me that occupations are daily activities that reflect cultural values, deliver structure to living, make appropriate use of an individuals time and give meaning to their lives.8 Occupation could also be said to be ordinary and familiar,4 thus it is the nature of the occupation that gives it purpose and meaning. 4 Even Occupational Therapy was better explained to me once I had combined my modernistic knowledge with that of our textbook Occupational Therapy can be accomplished through the teaching, facilitation and maintenance of skills, the encouragement of engagement in purposeful activity 2 and in occupation 2 so that a psyche can reach his/her optimal level of function. 3 OT is both an artistry and a science which uses occupation as both a doer and an end in therapy, both in individual and group therapies, to alter people, families and communities in a wide range of settings. 7This is a lot more than in-depth and complicated than I ever suspected it could be. I think that I was under the impression that occupation meant work like so m whatsoever(prenominal) others believe. And even in knowing and understanding this, I still battle to explain it to people. I even have a paladin who calls OTs glorified housewives who love to gardenOne thing that has reverse surface to me, studying our Problems in PBL, sitting through our Psychology and Sociology classes and studying OT this past year- OT is very holistic. Never is a diligent defined by their symptoms and OTs tend to study every aspect of a persons life before drawing conclusions or beginning therapy. The enunciate holistic has come to mean many things to me this year, but none more than that a persons characteristics areintimately interconnected and comprehendible only by reference to the whole.9 at a time I had gained the abstractive knowledge about OT, I was more than ready to start with the fieldwork disassemble of the year. I was placed at Thambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg for four-spot mornings everywhere three weeks. The diligent bureau that I was assigned to was diagnosed with deep overtone thickness burns with an amputated lower left arm from the elbow. But divagation from my patient of I was able to observe my Fourth Year with her other patients, was able to ask her questions and even assist in certain judgments, treatments and activities. This was a completely different experience to the one that I had had when I job shadowed at the same hospital a year bef ore. As an outsider and someone who is not aware of what OT truly meant, I solely saw the assessment of different patients at a superficial level and only really understood the treatment as games or activities that would bind the patient busy so that they did not notice that they were making use of the injured or problem area. Thankfully I now understand OT better and can see certain aspects of therapy and theory coming out in the actions of the OTs and their patients. Being able to see therapy performed from this view and being able to interact and speak with other OTs on a more professional level has helped to cement my plan to become an OT.During my time at the hospital I was lucky enough to observe most of the steps in the OT process. The OT process is defined in the Practise exemplar as the collaboration of the OT and the patient through the steps of evaluation, interpellation and outcomes in order to achieve health and conflict in life through the engagement in occupation .5The evaluation step consists of the occupational visibility and the analysis of occupational performance which help the OT determine what the patient hopes to gain during therapy, what they need to accomplish, what the patient can do and what are the barriers or bear outs to their health and participation in therapy. In this, I was able to speak with and reside out forms for two separate patients and also assist in the assessment of a third patient. With the occupational profile, the patient is very much the substance and all the questions are focused around them so that the appropriate terminuss for the end of therapy can be set.Intervention has three parts to it intervention plan, intervention implementation and intervention review. The plan is developed by both the OT and the patient to guide the therapy with the use of theory. Outcomes or goals are also decided upon during this stage. carrying out is the actions of the OT which will revolve around therapy as well as the support and encouragement needed to see an improved occupational performance.7 Implementation is accost towards the goals set and the OT is required to monitor and develop the patient at all times5 so that the activities are appropriate and can be adapted if they are not performing in the intended way. Finally, review is simply reflecting on the implementation and assessing the progress towards the set goals.Outcome is the determination of success at reaching the desired goals. The results of this step will be used in planning further therapy if it is needed. This step is one of the hardest to observe in my aspect and is also very subjective. A patient may feel that he is fine and does not need any more therapy while the OT may see him as dysfunctional. To be dysfunctional is not saying that there is something socially wrong with a person or that they are overtly damaged, this is something that I have come to learn this year. Dysfunction, defined within an OTs perspective is when a person cannot do or is at stake for not being able to partake in occupational participation and performance.10In terms of my assigned patient I was unluckily able to witness the barriers between her and my Fourth Year who was her OT which resulted in her involuntariness to participate in therapy, added to that was her de-motivation and also the selection of an inappropriate activity during therapy. My patient was French speaking and thus the OT could not effectively fill out her necessary forms, could not adequately communicate with her and had to get this information from the patients husband. And so the patient, who the OT thought, enjoyed cooking and cleaning chose an activity of making milkshakes. Once I spoke to the patient (since I know some French) it became clear that she does not enjoy milkshakes and only cooked and cleaned because it was culturally expected of her as a wife. This brings into play the remedy relationship. The therapeutic alliance between the patient a nd the OT develops over time11 and requires the OT to be able to communicate in an effective way such(prenominal) that these details are made known. Because of what happened to my Fourth Year with her miscommunication with her patient, I now understand the importance of our Dictionary assignments- to be able to communicate with any patient, no matter how rudimentary it is. Also, the selection of activities is imperative, especially for patients who are de-motivated which much occurs with burns patients or amputees. The loss of a limb or partial limb is a huge thing to deal with both physically and emotionally and burns patients are often de-motivated due to the pain of movement. Choosing the correct activity during therapy of these patients can determine whether there will be any progress in that session or not and also whether the patient will continue to be de-motivated or could possibly start to find reasons/purposes to want the therapy to succeed. This can also be accomplished through the therapeutic use of self to be able to use yourself, as an OT professional, to read the situation and adapt it, 11 whether it is during evaluation or during the intervention steps. tillage also needs to be considered when referring to patients. An OT need to take their patients culture into consideration and respect it. While culture may not define a person, it does indeed impact on their lives and ways of living. 12 Thus, my patient may only cook and clean because she is a wife but it is her responsibility in the home so she will need to rehabilitate to a point where she can continue with her tasks, but it may not be a good idea to use these tasks as activities since she sees them as work rather than leisure tasks.Overall, I would definitely say that this year has been a success. My knowledge of OT and the profession has increased and I am even more certain that I want to be doing this as a career. The importance of the OT process is further defined by role of an OT whi ch is categorised through the use of self, the therapeutic relationship, proper communication and increase with a firm foundation of knowledge and attained skills. To reiterate what Rachel Thibeault said, we see wholeness We dont fix people, you see with them we simply try to find a way tomeaning,balance, andjustice.1 Occupational Therapy is about the patient, it is not about us save for what we can do for others So the goal is to learn, make mistakes, learn from them, observe and experience as much as possible so that we can do everything possible to help them.From this end of the mountain range, I can only see the obstacles blocking the close from my sight. And yet I am not feeling deterred. Rather, I am excited to see what the mountains will contain and what I can learn from them. The next mountain that I see is end of year exams So I think that I am going to do this one mountain at a time and never forget what I have learned and discovered on the way so that I am prepared for every challenge that approaches me.Works Cited1 Gerber,AK. OT Without Borders. http//otwithoutborders.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/im-an-occupat/ (accessed 30 September 2014).2 Hersch, G. I., Lamport, N. K., Coffey, M.S. Activity Analysis Application to Occupation, fifth ed. SLACK Incorporated 20053 Thorner, S. The Essential Skills of an Occupational Therapist. British daybook of Occupational Therapy 1991 6(64).4 Curtin, M., Molineux, M., Supyk- Mellson, J. Occupational Therapy and Physical Dysfunction Enabling Occupation, sixth ed. Elsevier Churchill Livingstone 2010.5 American Occupational Therapy Association. (2008). Occupational Therapy Practise Framework compass and Process (2nd Edition). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 62, 625-6836 Devan, D., Casteleijn, D.. Problem Based Learning 2014. Lecture presented at Khanya Building, marbles pedagogics Campus 2014.7 Schell B., Gillen G. Scaffa M. .Willard and Spackmans Occupational Therapy. 12th ed. Baltimore MD. Lippinco tt, Williams Wilkins 20138 Jay J. Occupation Activity. Lecture presented at Khanya Building, marbles Education Campus 2014.9 Oxforddictionaries.com. holistic definition of holistic in Oxford dictionary (British manhood English) Internet. 2014 cited 1 October 2014. Available from http//www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/holistic10 smith R. Intro to Occupational Dysfunction. Lecture presented at Khanya Building, Wits Education Campus 2014.11 Devan D. Occupational Therapy Process PBL Post Problem Tut. Lecture presented at Khanya Building, Wits Education Campus 2014.12 Smith R. Cultural Diversity. Lecture presented at Khanya Building, Wits Education Campus 2014.