Career Path

In this career, your responsibilities may include:

• Evaluating patients’ medical history and assessing their conditions and needs by asking questions, performing tests, and watching them perform specific tasks.
• Designing and implementing treatment programs to support people with physical, intellectual, or emotional disabilities, or who are recovering from injury or illness, in the activities of daily living.
• Evaluating patients’ everyday environments (home, school, work), and identifying potential improvements to those environments that could ease the patients’ difficulties with related tasks.
• Educating patients’ families, schools, and employers regarding patients’ recommended care and accommodations.
• Suggesting assistive equipment that could help patients, such as wheelchairs or adaptive eating tools, and educating them in the proper use of said equipment.

Job Titles

In your job search, you may find listings for this career under different titles. You can find some examples of these, as well as more information about this career, at Career One Stop.

Academic Requirements

Typically requires a master’s degree. Obtaining a doctorate can make you eligible for careers with greater responsibility and higher salaries in this career pathway, if you do not already have the U.S. equivalent of a doctorate.