Hi, I'm Beth Anne Dixon and I'm studying to be an occupational therapist at university.
I decided to have a change of career after many years of working in marketing.
I wanted to have a career that would give me more job satisfaction and
I really enjoy working with people. I think occupational therapists help
people to do the things that they need and they want to do, that they might have
difficulty doing through a physical illness or a mental health problem.
Through ageing, just generally getting older, somebody might need more help to
stay in their own home, to do their own shopping, and it's very important to most
people to keep that independence and occupational therapists can come up with creative ideas to help them do that.
Occupational therapy is a way of working
with people to enable them to achieve their potential. We may be working with
people to prevent ill health and help them to maintain well-being, we may work
with people who are already ill to recover, or we work with people who may
be ill or disabled and will not recover or may even get worse, but the aim
throughout all of that is to help people to maintain independence and carry out
the occupations that are important to them and make them feel that they have a
value and a place within their own world, and their family and with society.
we come from so many different backgrounds as students and we range
from starting the course from age 19 up to 50, so everybody brings something
completely different to the course and sharing that background, that mix, helps.
Okay, what I would like to do today is to recap a little bit what we did
last week. Initially there's a lot of learning
theory and anatomy/ physiology and the occupational performance requirements
for people to perform daily activities. That basic knowledge of anatomy and
physiology is very important to a daily working life of an OT.
I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. I've been using the wheelchair
for about seven years. It makes a huge difference, without the wheelchair I
wouldn't be able to go out I simply would stay at home and be house bound.
I didn't actually know what the occupational therapist was or what they
did and when they came around and assessed me I was surprised just how
much they could do and they could help me.
An occupational therapist will help
people to use their wheelchair safely and independently, it gives somebody a
lot more independence so that they can get out and about. You have
to make sure that the wheelchair is suitable for the individual: if they are
putting too much pressure or the wheelchair's too tight or too big they
might slip or slide and develop contractures or even pressure sores if
they're using that wheelchair for any length of time. In a home, for instance,
you need to ensure that in a kitchen or in a bathroom, items are within reach so
it needs to be a safe, safe environment so an occupational therapist would visit a
home somebody who was about to receive a wheelchair to ensure that their home was
safe and recommend adaptations where necessary. we have some trainings are
moving and handling training specifically and we also use the anatomy
and the physiology lectures that we've been given to understand how people's
bodies move and work and which joints for instance would take the pressure
where somebody's needs to have extra support.
Once we've got some of the academic stuff and education stuff under our
belts, then we send out on practice placement in hospitals or lots
of different settings, that's when you can't duplicate somebody with
Parkinson's disease with a fit 25-year old student. It helps to understand the
basics but I think it's very important when we go on placement we learn a lot.
Okay, in this session we're going to examine the area of understanding mental health.
When I applied for the occupational therapy course I didn't realize that
occupational therapist worked in mental health settings as well, so that was
quite different and quite new for me.
There's a lot of confidence-building, helping people to become part of society again and to work with others.
Studying to be an occupational therapist has helped me learn so much more about
myself, I think if you want a career that can be varied but is based on the same
principles, so that you can you can work with people from six months to 90 years
of age, and you want to be flexible and you want to be creative, it's perfect for you.
Make a difference: become an occupational therapist.
Occupational therapy: helping people to live life their way.