Physical Therapy Vs Occupational Therapist Essay

I came to college to major in Occupational Therapy, and I was deciding between Physical Therapy or Occupational Therapy. One thing I had to do was to try and compare and contrast between these two careers to find out which one would fit me to my desires. I eventually came up with a career that I would like best while researching a little bit about the two. Physical Therapy is dealing more with an injury, while Occupational Therapy is dealing more with the skills of everyday life. That’s the bigger difference, but there are more similarities and differences between these two careers. Physical Therapy was one of my career choices to choose from. I was interested in this career because my Mom is a Physical Therapist assistant which is very

Occupational Therapy is the performance of activities required for everyday life. Also Occupational Therapy is recuperating from a physical or mental illness, which requires a lot of rehabilitation. For example, I went to shadow an occupational therapist and the patient she was treating had a stroke on the right side of the brain, so she was trying to get the feeling back on the left side of the body by doing certain exercises. These exercises included squeezing a stress ball with the left hand to get the movement back into her hand, moving cups from side to side and many more things to try and get the movement back into the body. Occupational Therapy just doesn’t deal with adults. It deals with children who have disabilities also. They help the children to fully participate in school and social situations. They help children recover to regain everyday life skills like buttoning a button on a shirt and zipping a jacket up and many more things. They try to improve the person’s ability to perform daily activities and give them goals to try and reach after their therapy session is over. Occupational Therapists work in different places also such as: schools, pediatric centers, nursing homes, hospitals and they might even come to work with you in your own home to help patients with there everyday life