The U’s Occupational Therapy (OT) program, the only such program in the state, is set to graduate its first class this month.
Occupational therapists work with people who face challenges in accomplishing many things they want or need to do in life.
The word “occupation” in occupational therapy refers to everything that occupies individuals?brushing their teeth, driving their cars, opening cans and managing businesses.
Occupational therapists work in clinics and hospitals, rehabilitation centers, school systems, mental health facilities, industrial environments, school districts, early intervention programs, other community- based programs and in people’s homes.
Occupational therapists help babies and children with developmental delays, teenagers with emotional problems, people with brain and spinal cord injuries, adults with chronic disabilities and older adults struggling with the limitations of age, just to name a few areas.
The goal of occupational therapy is to enhance quality of life after injuries or disabling disease through engagement in meaningful occupations.
The U’s OT program is a fully accredited three-year master’s program, which admitted its first class in the fall of 1999.
The program can accept up to 24 students each year. The first graduating class contains 15 students. Next year’s graduating class has 12 students, and the most recent class has 12 students.
“Next year, we hope to have a full class of 24 students,” said JoAnne Wright, director of the division of occupational therapy. “We hope that students will realize what a great profession this is and will choose to apply to our program.”
During the first semester of the program, students take a lot of classes with the physical therapy (PT) students, classes like human anatomy, kinesiomechanics and pathophysiology.
“The human anatomy class is really in-depth,” said Andrew Bracken, second-year student in the OT program, “and we have the opportunity to dissect cadavers in groups of four. It’s an excellent way to learn human anatomy and helps you pay attention to the details of anatomy.”
Other OT classes focus on developing treatments and assessments that are based on occupations, meaning all the activities that a person engages in from day to day or over their lifetime. This is what separates the OT program from the PT program.
Another way OT helps people become independent in their day- to-day occupations is by adapting the environment, or using adaptive equipment, such as the computers.
In the first semester of their second year, students study pediatric occupational therapy. There’s a class for pediatric evaluations that are used in OT, a class focused on developing treatments in pediatric occupations, a class on pediatric theory and a fieldwork seminar class.
In the second semester of their second year, students take the same classes, but they are focused on adults and adult disabilities.