Knowledge Check #17

     One rotation of my observations in undergrad was with an occupational therapist who worked primarily in acute care at the local hospital in the city that I was in school. One of the first things that I noticed while shadowing in acute care is that the hospital is all about efficiency. They try to send patients home or to another facility as quickly as possible. Essentially, if the person is stable (even right after surgery), they are already discussing with the client and their family about the next steps for rehabilitation outside of the acute floor. It also really surprised me that we would go visit a client for therapy even the same day after they had undergone surgery just to get them moving a little bit. The clients that we visited came from all kinds of backgrounds and had numerous types of surgeries or diagnoses which made acute care very interesting and fresh. The sphere of practice was mostly biological, although I do feel like there were some patients that we did see in the hospital with primarily psychological needs. Looking back, I would like to have asked the OT I was shadowing how long they see these type of clients or if they refer them to a more psychologically-based setting to receive further therapy since their needs didn't appear to really be "acute".
     This just goes to show that in the field of occupational therapy, there is a lot of overlap and "muddiness". You cannot always classify and individual into certain strict categories because everyone's needs are going to differ vastly. Overall, I have really enjoyed talking more in depth about the differences in acute, subacute, and long-term care in OT and what that really looks like. It has made things a lot more clear to me moving forward!
   

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