Health Care + Creativity Makes Perfect
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I really like the challenge and creativity of it, and working with people. I always knew I wanted to work with people, but I wasn’t sure how.
Is occupational therapy the most creative of the health care professions? It could be. What I love about it is the creativity. No two cases are the same. Say two people have a stroke. What we do for one person is not going to be the same as for the other person. We find that the treatment we do is very individual.
In terms of Occupational Therapy (OT) in Edmonton, there’s a definite coming together for professional development. The Society of Alberta Occupational Therapists is headquartered in Edmonton and it provides networking and educational opportunities for its members, as well as advocating the profession to government, insurers, and the public.
It's challenging to define OT because of its multidisciplinary nature. OTs understand how the mind and body work together, and the goal of the practice is to enable independence and function. I’d say any explanation of what OT is would probably contain the terms independence and function. It might not be easy for a person to get out of bed after an accident, for example, but we can help a person learn or re-learn the function of it so they can do it themselves. We work on quality of life.
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Raina Capito
Raina Capito loves hiking, camping, and soccer, and works as an occupational therapist at a long-term care facility in Edmonton.
