All About Occupational Therapy

What is Occupational Therapy?

Occupational Therapy helps you to live your best life at home, work, and everywhere else.It is about promoting independence and enabling people to do the occupations they want and have to do (RCOT 2024). Occupational Therapists emphasize the importance of of meaningful occupations in promoting physical, mental, and social wellbeing (Bolt et al, 2019).

Occupational Therapists work in a range of different settings, including community, hospitals, schools, and charities.

What are Occupations?

Occupations are activities that people do everyday that give their life meaning and purpose. Occupations help to shape people's idenities and influence their overall health and wellbeing (AOTA, 2020).

Occupational Therapy and Dementia

OTs work with patients with dementia to identity areas that they are struggling with and help them find ways around these whilst maximizing independence.

Furthermore, OTs can provide carers and family members with practical advice and techniques to help with daily self care tasks such as dressing and washing.

Role Emerging Student Placements

The importance of role emerging student placements

Role emerging placements take place in a setting where occupational therapy is not yet established.

Occupational Therapy is the solution to many of the UK's health and care needs. Research suggests that placing OTs in the community will not only improve peoples quality of life, but will also decrease hospital admissions. Furthermore, people will have the support they need to live independently for longer, and to continue to perform their daily occupations (RCOT 2024). Role emerging placements for students can help to develop the skills needed to not only work in an acute setting, but also in community settings.

'Role emerging placements focus on developing occupational roles in services that lack an established OT, to enable individual, group, and community participation in occupations' (Golos and Tekuzener 2021) . In role emerging placement setting, Occupational Therapy is not routinely provided, but there is potential for it. This is why student placements are so important, as it encourages students to use their knowledge to provide OT input in community settings.

What do 'OT' students do at Dementia Active?

OT placements at Dementia Active can help provide students with a range of skills needed to become a successful OT. Dementia Active is a great, supportive environment for students to grow and build confidence in communication and interpersonal skills.

Students roles at Dementia Active include:

planning and running activities that promote function and can be graded to each individual member
using different assessment tools including PAL and interest checklists, which helps to gain clinical reasoning skills
students have weekly supervision with an OT, and are also very supported by the team at Dementia Active

What Previous Students Have Said About Their Experience

"This placement has challenged me to apply occupational therapy to an emerging area of practice. I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with the members at DA. This has increased my confidence and ability to communicate effectively with service users"- Katherine, OT student

"I have really enjoyed my experience, especially in regards to spending time with members. Being part of group activities has allowed me to identify how important the centre is to individuals. In regards to my development, it has helped me gain communication skills that I can use in multiple different settings"- Annie, OT student

References

American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process (4th ed.). American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(Suppl. 2), 7412410010. Available at: https://www.aota.org/practice/domain-and-process/occupations-everyday-activities

RCOT, 2024 'What is Occupational Therapy'. Available at: https://www.rcot.co.uk/about-occupational-therapy/what-is-occupational-therapy

RCOT 2024 'Having more occupational therapists in the community will improve health and care services'. Available at: https://www.rcot.co.uk/news/having-more-occupational-therapists-community-will-improve-health-and-care-services

Golos, A. and Tekuzener, E. (2021) “Student and supervisor perspectives on the effectiveness of community-based placements for occupational therapy students,” BMC Medical Education, 21(1). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836471/

Bolt, M. et al. (2019) “Occupational therapy and primary care,” Primary Health Care Research & Development.

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