Types of Jobs in Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy is a career that encompasses many fields and requires you to choose a specific field in order to get the right credentials for the job. Therefore, the work of an occupational therapist is helping a patient recuperate from either illness, injury, disability or any other factor that may make a patient not to do his activities of everyday life. Below is an explanation of the various types of jobs in occupational therapy.
Types of Jobs in Occupational Therapy
The types of jobs in occupational therapy include gerontology, a job in the 
mental health sector, pediatrics and more.
Gerontology
This job type of occupational therapy mainly entails seniors. Its setting mainly at people’s homes, hospitals, workplaces, Out-patient Rehabilitation Centers and in the community. The following are reasons why older people need these services:
- Most of the aged people have chronic illnesses such as arthritis, therefore, need much assistance
- Recovering from stroke or an operation such as hip replacement
- Most of the age population have low vision
- Safety in driving
Mental Health
The setting of this specialty is mostly in hospitals and at home. The occupational
therapist is required to have the best interaction with their client to bring out the best in
him or her.
Pediatrics
This entirely deals with children and therefore, the occupational therapist is required to
fully help and work in hand with children for their development. The activities with the
child can include, feeding, playing, and socializing. The therapist should also be certified
in specific services such as functional skills for children, and also work children with
either physical or mental disabilities. The setting of this type of occupational therapy is
mainly at hospitals, schools, healthcare homes, and outpatient rehabilitation centers.
Physical Rehabilitation
The certification of these occupational therapy requires to be able to design and
implement recuperation interventions that a patient is centered. The setting is broad
according to the welfare of the patient and can include: hospitals, schools, healthcare
homes, nursing homes, outpatient rehabilitation facilities among others. These patients
have to have had gone through an accident previously and have gone through a
Driving and Community Mobility
Being that mobility is the cornerstone of an occupational therapist’s career, it needs the
practitioner to enable the client to be mobile in their community either by walking, or any
other means of transport to be used provided it is safe and cannot harm the client. The
specialty of this type of occupational therapy includes a determination of whether a
patient is fit to drive, provision of a drive-specific recuperation service, teaching
teenagers with a disability to drive and legal advocation of the court decisions about
continuing to drive. If it is walking, the patient should be guided on the best routes to
walk.
Environmental Modification
This type of occupational therapy requires the practitioner to fully assist the client to
modify and adapt to the change of environments of a home, work, school or community.
The practitioner determines the needs of the environments and provides strategies to
assist the patient to settle. Issues of security, independence, community networking,
and accessibility are also addressed by the practitioner and maybe a therapist.
Feeding, Eating, and Swallowing
This specialty requires the practitioner to provide services that are essential in the
management of feeding, eating and swallowing. These services include relevant
instructions to meet the needed guidelines of nutrition, addressing the holistic, physical,
cultural and psycho-social factors associated with feeding, eating and swallowing. The
setting is mainly in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, outpatient rehabilitation centers
and in health care homes.
Low Vision
It is advised that anyone with optical problems cannot be solved by lenses or any other
medical intervention and therefore the patient needs to be helped. Hence, occupational
therapists who specialize in low vision should have experience in ophthalmologists and
optometrists to help the patient to the fullest. In most cases, this type of occupational
therapy is done at homes.
School Systems
The specialty of this type of occupation is to efficiently work with students at school.
Therefore, it is to assist the student to complete his daily activities at school. The age
ranges from 3 to 21 and must be eligible for education services under the state, and the
state and local mandate.
Conclusion
You must choose wisely on the type of job you would like to do in occupational therapy according to your passion and the choices you make about your education. The above types of job in occupational therapy have different certifications; hence, it is important to understand all of them in detail before you can make your choice in career.