Occupational Therapy Assessments

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The importance of accurate assessment in Occupational Therapy, including professional and ethical responsibility. Occupational therapy is a client-centered health profession which uses occupation to promote health and well-being. The primary goal of occupational therapy, according to the American Occupational Therapy Association, is to support and enable “health and participation in life through engagement in occupation”. Occupational therapists work with people and communities to improve their ability to engage in occupations, modify the occupation, or modify the environment to support occupational engagement to achieve this outcome (WFOT, 2012). However, “occupation” does not exclusively mean work. “Occupation” includes things that people…show more content…
Assessments can be done as interviews, observations, standardized tests or activities, for all occupational therapy cases such as physical, paediatric or psychiatric cases (Manchanda & Norman, 2014). The combination of the above mentioned assessments assess components of a client’s mental, physical and psychosocial performance. Additionally, they also functionally assess the influence of a dysfunction on the various areas of occupational performance, which include work, social participation, sleep and rest, personal management, survival skills, leisure and education (Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process,…show more content…
First, that conducting assessments require a certain set of skills from me, which I need to work on until I have mastered them in order to be a worthy, professional and successful occupational therapist. I need to work on perfecting my clinical reasoning skills, observation skills, as well as communication skills in order to conduct accurate assessments with reliable information. Second, is that experience can be the most valuable teacher. Through experience, mistakes can be made, and can be learned from. The knowledge gained from exposure with real clients with real problems in their unique way is essential for self-growth, and both, personal and professional learning. Therefore it is vital to take full advantage of the experiences presented by fieldwork, and to grab the opportunity of learning during these experiences with both hands. References Jackman, M. (2013, January 30). Occupational Therapy and Mental Health. (American Health and Wellness Institute (AHWI)) Retrieved September 8, 2015, from Psych Central: Psychcentral.com Manchanda, R., & Norman, R. (2014, November 4 - 15). Assessment. (London Health Sciences Centre ) Retrieved September 8, 2015, from Prevention & Early Intervention Program for Psychoses : www.pepp.ca/Index.html Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process. (2002, November/December ). American Journal of Occupational Therapy,

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