As a first year student straight out of matric I had very little knowledge about what Occupational Therapy entailed. I had job shadowed qualified occupational therapists in many different settings before deciding that occupational therapy was the career for me. At the time I thought I knew and understood what the career involved however after starting my first year at the University of Witwatersrand I quickly realised that occupational therapy was much more complex than I had originally perceived.
During the course of the year we were required to engage in Problem Based Learning (PBL) groups and attend fieldwork. These experiences enabled me to learn many important lessons regarding Occupational Therapy. PBL highlighted the importance …show more content…
This realisation showed me the versatility of the roles of an occupational therapist within any work environment which in turn makes occupational therapists important within many industries and not just within the health sector.
After defining occupational therapy and identifying the roles of an occupational therapist we began exploring the different aspects within the definition of occupational therapy by defining the client centred approach and discussing the importance of occupations in a person’s daily …show more content…
First we defined occupations as the performance of an activity on a regular basis. Thereafter we explored the effect of the environment and mental influences on one’s ability to perform daily occupations which we split into personal management, sleep and rest, leisure and play and survival skills. We explored ways to assess each section and how to determine functionality, balance and wellness in the above mentioned sections of