Ethical Issues In Occupational Therapy

Occupational Therapy is a profession primarily centred around client-therapist interactions. The main objective of an occupational therapist (OT) is to empower and assist their clients in their return to everyday life and activities. Occupational therapists work with their clients for extended periods of time in order to ensure that they are able to participate in their normal daily routines with some degree of ease. OT's achieve this goal through building trust and rapport with their clients by representing themselves with the highest degree of professional identity and following the codes of conduct, to which ensures safety to all involved in the achievement of this goal. As occupational therapists work closely with a number of different

I am currently a senior in the Occupational Therapy program. As I prepare to go out on fieldwork in the upcoming semesters, reflecting on how music relates to occupational therapy has had a benefit in my thinking of my future job. I have had the amazing opportunity to be working with children with disabilities for many years. Most of the children I have worked with have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism Spectrum Disorder is defined as, “a complex developmental disability; signs typically appear during early childhood and affect a person’s ability to communicate, and interact with others” (“About Autism | Autism Society" 1). Along with affecting communication and interaction, a lot of children have difficulty with the processing

You started your first job at a large hospital. You are assigned a patient to treat who no one wants to work with because the patient always says “NO”. The Occupational Therapy team leader tells you that you need to treat the patient because the doctor is angry that the patient has not been receiving therapy. You are told that the patient’s nurse has called to complain to the therapy department about the fact that the patient has not been receiving therapy

“In support of the Centennial Vision, in accordance with AOTA, Rehabilitation, Disability, and Participation, has been identified as a key practice area in the 21st century” (AOTA n.d.). But what is a disability and what does it mean to rehabilitate? To rehabilitate means to bring something back to its original state. A disability is defined as “anyone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. This includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability” (ADA 2015). In correlation with disabilities and rehabilitation, inpatient and outpatient are the two prominent sites in rehabilitative care. Inpatient rehabilitation commonly refers to physician and therapy services one would receive during a stay in a hospital or if

As an occupational therapy (OT) student at the University of Scranton, I have had the privilege of seeking the upmost educational experience that has fostered my knowledge and skills to be able to contribute to the field of OT. However, throughout some of my fieldwork experiences I had the unfortunate experiences of witnessing ethical dilemmas at some of my affiliations. Specifically, I will address the ethical dilemma I observed at my first Level II fieldwork. This summer I spent 12 weeks at a skilled nursing facility located in Staten Island, New York. A major ethical dilemma that I had the ill-fated experience of witnessing was the acts of the certified physical therapists, occupational therapists, and occupational therapy assistants breaching the confidentiality of the clients of whom they worked

Howat, personal communication, March 22, 2018). Occupational therapist’s main roles include encouraging clients to develop new skills, helping them find improved ways of completing activities, manipulating the individual’s residence or workspace to meet their needs, or through providing therapy devices and equipment (About Occupational Therapy, 2018). When prescribing therapy devices, the occupational therapist must ensure the client knows how to best use it to ensure the client gets a full solution, not just a product (About Occupational Therapy, 2018). A further responsibility of occupation therapists is to consider the individual values of the client, an example of this is making a physically harmful activity less so because of the emotional benefits of the activity (K. Howat, personal communication, March 22,

I write to report a violation of principles number 2, section B, C, D, I, and J of the American Occupational Therapy Association code of ethics by Lucy Jackson. During my Fieldwork in fall semester (September-November) of last year, I noticed a pattern of behavior by my supervisor, Lucy Jackson at Mannor Care Center in Washington. The supervisor has been verbal abusive to Maryann Smith, a 68 years old woman with acute kidney injury and obesity. The verbal abuse started on my first day (09/7/2016) working with Lucy Jackson and ended when the patient was discharged on 9/27/2016. My supervisor always conducted treatment sessions in Maryann Smith’s room and since the other therapists aren’t around, she used the opportunity to verbally abuse Maryann

Occupational Therapy is a therapy that blankets everything people do in their lives. Such a broad field can be very difficult to define. Unlike Physical Therapy who people instantly identify as a field that get people walking. In the past the vision of the field was broader. “In 2004 The Scenario were developed” a structure created with the Occupational Therapy framework. Medicare guidelines and reimbursement rates in the field of occupational therapy have been limited in the past because the Occupational Therapy field has failed id as a

Ethics is a system of moral principles, the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc. medical ethics; Christian ethics. Moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of confidence.

Occupational Therapy is a health care profession in which we facilitate maximal independence and quality of life throughout the lifespan. As an Occupational Therapy Assistant Student, I want to be able to make the difference in the individual life to reach the patients goals and helping them back to be independent as possible. “The mission of the University of Charleston is to educate each and every student to their life of productive work, enlightened living and the community involvement.” (The University of Charleston, 2017). Liberal Learning Outcomes helps the student to be able to communicate effectively and engage in creativity in our professional and personal life (The University of Charleston, 2017).

I was fortunate enough to complete a three-hundred-hour internship with Albion Fellows Bacon Center. Albion is a non-profit organization whose mission is to prevent domestic and sexual violence while striving to empower victims through advocacy, support services, education, and collaborative partnerships. The agency provides services 24 hours a day to the following eleven counties in southern Indiana: Crawford, Dubois, Gibson, Harrison, Orange, Perry, Pike, Posey, Spencer, Vanderburgh, and Warrick. The agency is named after a prominent Evansville woman who committed her life to improving living and working conditions for women, children, and the poor.

How hard is it to say that a child will never really progress further with intervention? Whether or not treating a child past the points of progress have been an ethical issue surrounding Occupational Therapy. There are few studies in the stagnancy of progress with children, so making a decision, while partially uninformed can be quite difficult. A 2004 National Center for Biotechnology Information Study found that waiting to see if further treatment will yield success can be detrimental to the psyche of not only the child but also the parents. This brings forth a critical decision of whether to continue heightening the hopes of a family in distress or to inform the family that treatment is futile. There is a major concern about the welfare

Gail and Louise are domestic violence workers who provide outreach services at the local courthouse. Because of the lack of an available private office, they conduct their peer supervision at a local coffeehouse, being careful only to identify their clients by their first name.

As an occupational therapist I would like to help individuals who are differently abled gain quality of life and independence by improving upon both mental and physical challenges to function as a whole person, as this is what I understand the role of the occupational therapist from both personal and observational experience to be. I believe this is accomplished through providing encouragement and support, educating each client and their loved