OTPF Guiding OT Practice
When thinking about occupational therapy as a whole, its ideals and values center around helping clients regain their functioning in the world. Because each individual's idea of functioning looks different, it is vital that an OT first look at the motivations behind a client's life choices and interests. This is where the OTPF plays a vital role. Its defining features include focusing on the client's occupations, lifestyles, environment, beliefs, etc. Basically, the OTPF states that an OT cannot proceed with a treatment until the OT understands the client as a person. This is integral in the OT profession because it guides the therapist to initiate interventions valued by the client that will not only increase the client's ability to participate in his own lifestyle but also allows him to participate in the world.
Something I have been accustomed to growing up are the phrases "shake it off" or "suck it up" after falling down or sustaining an injury. Having grown up in a family where there were many children to support on a tight budget, I understood the fact that a hospital visit was the last resort. Undoubtedly this has facilitated my understanding that you shrug it off and move on. To a certain extent, I agree with this ideal. However, after learning the extreme results of certain injuries and their lifelong effects, I may have my future child's doctor on speed dial! Something that continued to bother me during the story of nurse, Dawn Pereda, was the fact that her own facility where she worked sent her home after she sustained a severe head injury. It wasn't until hours after alarming symptoms began to appear that she was screened for an injury. By this point, it was too late. Now life relies on a schedule that must be maintained or she will not be able to
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