Occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) who hold a Lifestyle Redesign Certification have fulfilled the following requirements:
There are two pathways to completing the didactic education requirement; a visual representation of these pathways can be found below:
Note: You must be enrolled in the Mentored Practicum before you can start to accrue practice hours. See FAQs for more information about guidelines and how to accrue hours.
1. What does it mean to be certified in Lifestyle Redesign?
A professional certification validates that an individual has obtained and maintained a high level of knowledge and skill in their profession, which can potentially lead to increased confidence, autonomy, and recognition by colleagues and employers.
Specifically, obtaining certification means the OT practitioner can use the term Lifestyle Redesign to describe their relevant clinical services and programs, research projects, scholarly works, and education activities. See question 7 for more specific examples of each of these activity categories.
2. What are the similarities and differences between Lifestyle Redesign certification and other credentials in health and wellness, such as health coaching or lifestyle medicine?
Lifestyle Redesign is an intervention framework developed by OT practitioners for OT practitioners. As such, Lifestyle Redesign is grounded in the holistic lens, scope, skills, and language of OT with the focus being on supporting client engagement in meaningful occupations, habits, and routines to improve health, quality of life, and chronic condition management. Lifestyle Redesign interventions can be embedded within routine occupational therapy practice, using similar reimbursement mechanisms (e.g., CPT codes) as other skilled occupational therapy services.
Other health and wellness certifications, such as health coaching or lifestyle medicine, can be obtained by a variety of healthcare professionals, including OT practitioners. Knowledge gained from these certifications complement, rather than build upon, foundational occupational therapy knowledge. These certifications have a similar goal of supporting individuals in improving their health and wellness, and address similar topics (e.g., physical activity, sleep, nutrition) as Lifestyle Redesign, but do not have the same focus on occupational orchestration and engagement.
3. Why are only occupational therapy practitioners eligible to be certified in Lifestyle Redesign?
Lifestyle Redesign certification builds on foundational skills taught in occupational therapy educational programs, including occupation-based evaluation, treatment planning, and intervention delivery. Some, but not all, of these skills are taught in other health professional programs.
Occupational Therapy Assistants (OTAs) are eligible to take Lifestyle Redesign continuing education courses and complete certification. They will need to partner with a Lifestyle Redesign certified occupational therapist to fully integrate Lifestyle Redesign into their treatments, as the OT evaluation and treatment plan needs to be informed by Lifestyle Redesign principles and clinical reasoning.
4. What can I do with a Lifestyle Redesign Certification?
Obtaining certification means the occupational therapy practitioner can use the Lifestyle Redesign credentials after their name and use Lifestyle Redesign terminology to describe relevant clinical, educational, research, and administrative activities.
Clinical activities could include direct patient care, program development and related quality improvement projects, and participation in multidisciplinary teams. Educational activities could integrate content regarding Lifestyle Redesign into relevant OT and OTA curricula (e.g., health promotion and wellness courses), inservices and webinar presentations, and clinical supervision for students. Research or scholarly activities could include grant proposals, research projects, conference presentations, and publications. Administrative activities could include program development, advocacy efforts, and supervision of future certificants.
5. Should I choose the Graduate Certificate or Continuing Education pathway to certification?
The Graduate Certificate pathway is most appropriate for currently enrolled USC Chan students, who can complete the courses as electives within their degree programs. Graduate Certificate courses are primarily offered in person, at our Health Sciences Campus in Los Angeles. After completing these courses, students would earn a USC Graduate Certificate in Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign.
However, the graduate certificate is not equivalent to professional certification. In order to earn a Lifestyle Redesign certification, Graduate Certificate holders would need to complete practice hours, then sit for and pass the certification exam.
The Continuing Education pathway is most appropriate for licensed occupational therapy practitioners who are interested in a flexible, distance-learning option to advance their work in occupational therapy clinical care, research, education, and/or administration.
Please refer to theLifestyle Redesign Pathways to Certification document for an overview.
6. Are occupational therapy students enrolled in programs outside of USC eligible to take the Lifestyle Redesign Graduate Certificate or Continuing Education courses?
Occupational therapy students enrolled in programs outside of USC are eligible to enroll in the Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign Course Series. However, individuals are not eligible to sit for the Lifestyle Redesign certification exam until they are licensed OT practitioners. As such, OT students can start the Lifestyle Redesign certification process by taking the continuing education courses, but will not be eligible for certification until they are licensed and have completed the requisite number of Lifestyle Redesign practice hours.
Students must be an enrolled USC student to take the Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign Graduate Certificate courses. Thus, OT students enrolled in programs outside of USC are not eligible to take the graduate certificate courses.
7. Can I apply previous coursework or continuing education towards Lifestyle Redesign Certification?
Yes. If you have taken relevant coursework or continuing education, you can complete and submit a Special Considerations application and portfolio. Your materials will be reviewed by a committee of current Lifestyle Redesign Certification instructors, and you will receive a summary of previous coursework that counts toward Certification requirements.
Relevant coursework and continuing education must have been completed within seven years prior to applying for certification. For example, if you submit a Special Considerations form in April 2025 with the intention of sitting for the Certification Exam in 2025, you can count coursework and continuing education that was completed in 2018 or later.
8. I live and practice occupational therapy outside of the United States. Can I take the Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign Course Series and am I eligible to be Lifestyle Redesign Certified?
Occupational therapy practitioners outside the U.S. are eligible to take the fully-remote Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign Course Series, which includes the Mentored Practicum in Lifestyle Redesign (OT 638). They are also eligible to become Lifestyle Redesign Certified, if they have graduated from a WFOT-accredited occupational therapy program, and are authorized to practice occupational therapy (e.g., current licensure or registration, if applicable) in their home country.
Please be aware that while the majority of learning activities associated with the Foundations of Lifestyle Redesign Course Series are completed asynchronously, the Mentored Practicum is a 2-hour weekly course, held synchronously. We aim to accommodate as many time zones as possible with our course scheduling, but cannot guarantee that the course will be offered within normal working hours in your time zone.
9. What counts toward the practice hours required for initial certification in Lifestyle Redesign?
Practice hours in Lifestyle Redesign can be accrued in a variety of ways:
- If you are currently a practicing occupational therapy practitioner, any evaluation or treatment session in which you incorporate Lifestyle Redesign principles and strategies, even if not for the full session, counts toward your practice hours. For example, if working with an outpatient rehabilitation client post-MI, you could count sessions in which you address lifestyle factors that impact their risk of future cardiac events such as physical activity, sleep, stress management, and medication management.
- If you are a student in a Level II fieldwork or Doctoral Capstone experience that is supervised by a Lifestyle Redesign certified practitioner, clinical practice hours under their supervision that include Lifestyle Redesign principles and strategies (as described above) count towards certification.
- Hours completed during the Mentored Practicum in Lifestyle Redesign course (e.g., minimum of two hours/week throughout the semester) count towards certification.
- Hours completed outside of a traditional practice setting (e.g., with friends or acquaintances as clients) count towards certification, as long as they also adhere to all applicable laws and regulations pertaining to occupational therapy practice in your jurisdiction. There is a 50-hour maximum for this practice hour type.
- In tracking the above hours, note that hours cannot “double count” towards certification. In other words, if you treat a client in your work setting and also review that client as part of the Mentored Practicum course, that treatment hour can only count once.
- We are aware of the need for alternative activities that can be applied to the practice hour requirement, and will update this page as these details become available.
