If you’re an occupational therapist working in an acute care hospital setting, you already know that this OT setting is quite different from the traditional rehab-based settings. Acute care is fast-paced, intense (at times), and so educational. If you’re brand new to acute care and you are about to start fieldwork or a new job […]
As an occupational therapy student, I remember being completely overwhelmed by all the different practice settings where an OT can work. In particular, I had trouble discerning between inpatient hospitals (also known as acute care hospitals) and acute rehab hospitals. In my head, I used those words interchangeably until I finally learned more detail behind […]
When you’re an OT or OTA student starting any fieldwork, it is always a good idea to walk into your clinical setting with an idea of the expectations of the setting, whether it’s acute care or another setting. So, this is exactly what we will cover in this post (for your acute care fieldwork specifically). […]
When I first became an OT, I spent the first year and a half of my career working solely in inpatient rehab, and during that experience I wrote my first day in the life article all about what a typical inpatient rehab day looks like for me. After that first year and a half, I […]
As OTs, we love to engage our patients in meaningful and functional activities, and as a result, treating intubated patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) can be challenging. We are creative thinkers, for sure, but every now and then we need a bit of guidance to brainstorm creative solutions for challenging circumstances, like a […]
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, approximately 53,000 people per year undergo surgery for a shoulder replacement in the United States (OrthoInfo, 2023). Although this number is quite small compared to the 900,000+ people per year who go in for hip and knee replacements, this means occupational therapy practitioners working in joint […]
Caregiver and family education: Along with patient education, this is truly one of the most important aspects of occupational therapy in any rehab setting, from acute care to outpatient and everything in between. With such a high level of importance comes the big responsibility to remember everything you need to cover in sometimes only one […]
We’re thrilled to share our first interview with an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Occupational Therapist, Abby Lefkove, OTR/L. Occupational therapy in the ICU is a subset of acute care that entails working with medically fragile patients and their families while they are in the ICU. In this interview, Abby tells us about what a typical […]
Are you an occupational therapist or COTA new to the acute care setting wondering “What are the biggest acute care must-haves?” Well, we’ve got you covered, because I’ve compiled the top “must-haves” for the acute care setting in this article. I created this list from my favorite items along with suggestions from my acute care […]
Patients in the acute care setting are admitted with the goal of medical stability. Occupational therapists provide an important role not only in the physical rehabilitation of the patient while admitted to acute care, but also with providing the recommendations for post-acute care and discharge. OT is especially qualified for making these recommendations, as we […]