A COTA working in an inpatient setting with veterans who have upper-extremity amputations attends a daily progress meeting with a rehabilitation team. What type of team is this?

• A. Transdisciplinary team
• B. Interdisciplinary team
• C. Multidisciplinary team
• D. Allied health team

Answer: (C)

In this inpatient rehabilitation setting, a daily progress meeting where professionals from different disciplines come together to discuss patient status is best described as a multidisciplinary team. Here, each discipline—occupational therapy, physical therapy, prosthetics, nursing, psychology, etc.—works from its own assessments and goals and delivers its own part of the care. They share updates and coordinate but maintain separate treatment plans and responsibilities.

This differs from an interdisciplinary team, where there is a more integrated, shared plan with joint decision-making and often some co-treatment toward common goals. A transdisciplinary team goes further, with roles blending and professionals crossing into each other’s domains to deliver interventions. The term allied health team is a broad descriptor without specifying how the disciplines collaborate.