Occupational therapy assistants (OTAs) have usually completed a 2-year associate degree program.

The three-year coverage includes 85 percent of costs up to 180 visits with a program manager and 1,350 visits with a therapy assistant, she said.

Eventually, she earned a two-year associate's degree as a physical therapy assistant.

The group has 47,600 members, including about 2,000 physical therapy assistants with associate degrees in the speciality.

Lincoln is known for its mortuary science, occupational therapy assistant, dental hygiene, and criminal justice programs.

The average annual income for occupational therapy assistants as of 2009 was $50,840.

"They are essentially almost therapy assistants," Ed Rudder, the program's clinical coordinator, says in the documentary.

Her mother is a physical therapy assistant at nursing homes in Queens.

Plasencia, 37, is a physical therapy assistant from Del Rio, Texas, a town on the Mexico border of about 37,000 people.

Currently (March 2011) there are 2 occupational therapists and 11 occupational therapy assistants working in the Ministry of Health.