Debunking Common Myths About OT

“OT works with the upper body and PT works with the lower body” 

• OT works with the client to make sure that they are doing their daily activities “occupations” as easily and as independently as possible. OTs can work on the upper body, but we also work with the whole body to make sure that a person is as independent as possible.This misconception comes from OTs that work with the upper body in orthopedic OT and certified hand therapists. 

“OTs help people get jobs”

• This can be confusing because occupation does mean job in most ways that you hear it, but for OTs occupation means anything that you want or have to do that is meaningful or important in your everyday life. This can be anything that you do at school, your job, at home, etc. This can be things like cleaning your room, sleeping, eating, putting on makeup, etc. Everything that you do every day is an occupation. OT helps you do everything you need to do in your day!

“OTs just work with kids with Autism and help adults go to the bathroom in the hospital right?”

• OTs can work with a wide variety of conditions, age groups, amount of people, and settings. OTs can work with babies in the NICU and help them be in the best position while they are sleeping, they can work with children in schools and help them learn how to hold their scissors the right way, they can work with teenagers in an outpatient clinic learn how to apply to college or learn how to buy their groceries online, they can work with adults after a stroke learn how to open a water bottle and shower independently, or they can work with a person after a rotator cuff repair to help with the movement and the strength in their shoulder. OTs can also work with one person at a time or they can work with a group of people. OTs can also work with a whole community or a population (a group of people that have a lot of similarities). OTs are hard to put into a box- they can help their clients do just about anything that they need to (Langbein, 2019).

“OTs just do crafts and play all the time, they don’t do actual therapy”

• OTs can use crafts and things that others would view as “play” as a therapeutic tool. An OT is going to use the activities to work towards the person’s goals. For example, a child may stack blocks to help them learn how to use their hands and vision together to complete a task. Each activity that an OT is going to do in therapy will help the client to achieve a goal and it will use something the client enjoys. This is why sometimes it can look like play or crafts whenever they are in therapy. 

“OTs just work with people physical disabilities”

• I talked about this in a part of the post, but OT can work in a variety of different settings (hospitals, schools, outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities, etc.) with a variety of different groups of people (infants, school-aged kids, adults, elderly patients, etc.).

•  OTs can work with people with physical disabilities as well as with:

  • Memory and thinking impairments (ex. Dementia, traumatic brain injuries, etc.)

  • Mental health conditions (ex. Anxiety, OCD, depression, etc.)

  • Delays in growing or learning (ex. Autism, cerebral palsy, etc.)

  • Difficulties with how their body deals with different senses (Stony Brook University, 2026)

References

Langbein, R. (2019). A Student’s Guide to Dispelling Common Misconceptions about OT. American Occupational Therapy Association. https://www.aota.org/publications/student-articles/school-tips/misconceptions

Stony Brook University. (2026). What is Occupational Therapy? Debunking Common Myths. Stony Brook School of Health Professions. https://healthprofessions.stonybrookmedicine.edu/what-is-occupational-therapy