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 […]
As an OT student starting any fieldwork, it is important to walk into your clinical setting with an idea of the expectations of the setting. That’s exactly what we will cover in this post. Before you start your acute care fieldwork, the first thing you want to do is to contact your clinical instructor (CI) […]
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 […]
Occupational therapy has a unique and important role in the intensive care unit (ICU). A history of OT in the ICU, the environment, specialized equipment, diagnoses, and the importance of OT’s contribution in the ICU, as well as evaluation and intervention, will be covered in this article. Early treatment proposes the opportunity to decrease ICU […]
If you’re an occupational therapist working in the acute care setting, you already know that this setting is quite different from the traditional rehab-based settings. Acute care is fast-paced, intense, and so educational. If you’re about to start fieldwork or a new job in acute care, this article will give you a better understanding of […]
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 a post about what a typical inpatient rehab day looks like for me. After that first year and a half, I began cross-training and then floating regularly […]
I’m excited to showcase My OT Spot’s 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 […]
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, roughly 53,000 people per year undergo surgery for a shoulder replacement in the United States (OrthoInfo, 2020). 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 […]
Every year, more than 795,000 people experience a stroke in the United States (cdc.gov, 2017). Therefore the chances are high that you will encounter one of these individuals in your occupational therapy practice, no matter what practice setting you work in. For occupational therapists working in acute care, working with someone who has experienced a […]