Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Occupational Therapist Assistant (OTA)

I've been working as an OTA about a year and a half now and I have to say I love my job. The one thing that makes me sad is not a lot of people know what Occupational Therapy (OT) is. It's an often over looked therapy but has so many benefits and can help just about anyone as it focuses on a persons daily activities.

So, if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer to the best of my abilities!

Also I have a huge interest in therapeutic horse back riding/hippotherapy, I'm happy to talk about. ^-^

I have a family member who's non-verbal Autistic and has worked with an OT for years. It was immensely helpful for him and helped his safety awareness and ability to follow direction significantly. So it's a good line of work .

What led you to become interested in being an OTA? How long is the training for that? How did you get into hippotherapy?

What are some examples of what you do in occupational therapy? How is it similar to physical therapy, and mental health therapy? Or how is it different?

I'm curious. What do you think is the most common misconception about OT? And what would you say is the most rewarding part of your work?

Funny enough I wanted to become an OTA after visiting a place that offered therapeutic horse back riding. I was maybe 13-15 and it just stuck with me. I always wanted to help people and being a nurse just wasn't my thing.

The training you need an associates degree, so many hours of in person working hours -the most hated part of the program because you had to work a full time job for free basically but eh experience-. and you have to pass the state boards exam to certified, then you can apply for you license. To keep your license you have to have 24 hours of continuing education (In PA where I live. it's different state by state) over a span of 2 years. You also need continuing education for your certification which is 36 hours over a span of 3 years. Luckily they often carry over for each other.

The hippotherapy was something I'd learned about when I went to the barn with therapeutic horse back riding but in high school for my senior year I had to write a paper on a topic and that's what I chose as a topic. I was hooked on it ever since and while I'm not currently involved in hippotherapy I do hope to find a facility where I can be. Fingers crossed for that.

So, I work with older adults in a nursing home/rehabilitation setting. A lot of what I do is help them get stronger, build up their endurance and get them ready to transition home, if possible. Where OT is different from say PT here is I tend to focus a lot on activities of daily living. Getting dressed, washing themselves, being able to go to the toilet, get their pants down, wipe themselves and then stand up, get their pants up and leave the bathroom. In this setting PT and OT have a lot of cross over as we will both work on strengthening and balance and endurance. I like to call OT the fine tuning therapy where PT just gets you up and moving. Both are very important but we focus on different goals.

It's funny you mention mental health as OT works a lot with that. I worked for 6 weeks in a state mental hospital while I was in college and a lot of what we did was coping skills and skills to help manage daily routines. OT's will also help assess if the person will be safe if leaving a hospital setting, clearly with other professionals involved but we look at if they can safely cook or clean or do their own laundry. We see if they can function in a non-instructional type setting.

Or someone who isn't in a hospital setting OT's can help set up a schedule to assist a person in managing their daily needs, coping skills and try and improve their mental health. I don't work with many mental health patients in my setting but it does come up now and then. Working to motivate people who are depressed or anxious is a very common occurrence.

I think the biggest misconception is that Occupational therapy is for your job. I have heard that several times as my short time as a therapist lol. While OT cause go into a workplace and help with proper lifting techniques and all that its not it's only focus. My one professor would say OT works on what occupies your time. So, eating, bathing, dressing, taking care of a pet or child or loved one, playing video games. That all falls under the scope of OT.

I think one of the most rewarding things is to see someone look at me after say, standing for the first time in days or weeks or getting their own clothes on and them being like "I did it!" And I'm just like 'HELL YES YOU DID!' Or a family member telling me that they haven't seen their loved one do something like that in so long.

Just to see them get back that independence they had lost is so rewarding. There's some crappy parts of my job but I don't think I'll ever get tired of that.

What's been your favorite experience in this field up to this point? And do you have any future goals within this occupation?

My favorite experience, that's a tough one. I can't say any one but something that happens that I enjoy is getting the people that truly want to get better (Because there's a shocking amount of people that just do not want to try and want us to wave a magic wand and fix them but will not put the work in to get better) to do things they haven't been able to do since getting out of the hospital. Walking, standing up by themselves, dressing. Things like that. To see them smile and get their confidence back is amazing.

My biggest goal is to work under a hippotherapist or at the very least work in a place that uses animals heavily in therapy. That would be something I'd love to do every day.