Occupational Therapy is a noble profession that treats physically or neurologically disabled people and helps them do the daily chores of life or any other physical, mental, or creative activity across their lifespan without relying on any other person. This was a sort of bookish definition. To break it down into simple terms, occupational therapy is all about independence, which is the basic right of every individual. This therapy aims to make people independent to live their lives like all the other members of society. For example, if a person has Cerebral Palsy, and it might be difficult for them to do the things which other people can do very easily, then an occupational therapist will help that person do those occupations and provide them with all the necessary things which are required to do those things independently without relying on someone.
Pursuing Masters’s in occupational therapy would be beneficial for both the person and people in general because though Occupational Therapists(OT) are increasing day by day. However, still, there is far from what is required in terms of number. This field seems to have a really bright future in the coming years. And if we go by facts, Forbes listed Occupational Therapy as one of the most promising Job Landing professions.
Occupational Therapists can work in Hospitals, NGOs, rehabilitation centers, and other public or private sectors depending upon the job prospects. They work full-time or part-time jobs and acquire a handsome salary for this amazing job. In most countries, job prospects for an individual with Masters’s in Occupational therapy are growing fast, and in some countries like the US, it’s even faster than the national average. A skilled OT can make approximately equal or more than what a Physical Therapist makes. This profession will demand people who require treatment from disabilities or ailments like cerebral palsy, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, physical disability like loss of limb, or old age.
If you go into details of this very professional, then you’ll get to know that Occupational therapists observe, diagnose, evaluates, and teaches the patients in all the ways possible to get them to stand for their own needs. They look after the patient’s improvement and observes the prospects of that person’s abilities. An Occupational Therapist prescribes electronic equipment as per the patient’s needs, sees what works for the person with the disability, teaches, empowers, and basically enables people to continue living like any other human in society. While we take doing the daily chores of life for granted but for disabled people, these things are a great deal, and these therapists do an amazing job of training and enabling people to do them. Be it something as simple as helping a person to learn to brush their teeth to something as tough as preparing that same person for professional life, a skilled occupational therapist does it all.
Some of the best institutions in the world provide Occupational theory courses of MSc on campus. There are over Thirty Institutions in the UK alone that offers two, three, or four-year courses. The range of work is fantastic. An OT can work in different settings. Like, they can work in a hospital, a school, a university, a community of people, or an equipment company. There are a lot of different areas of interest and employment for an OT. Apart from being a Therapist who actually deals with patients, one can also coach people professionally to become a successful occupational therapist. They can work as a practitioner or a researcher or, for that matter, even a manager.
This job can be really exhausting because of the constant requirement of moving the patient and the equipment. And sometimes, they are also required to attend multiple appointments in a short span of time. But then that feeling of making people do what they cannot because of some disability surely compensates for the tiredness.
An occupational therapist’s profession is basically enabling people to live their lives to the fullest with independence. It is a noble and respectable profession with many scopes in the present and the time to come.
