function!

In 2025, every new Occupational Therapist will have a Doctorate (OTD). The profession has raised the bar to increase recognition as the valuable team member that is dedicated to restoring functional independence. When you've broken a bone, been in a car wreck or had a stroke, your limitations are immediate. The first thing you notice is everything that has suddenly become more difficult and you might even find yourself needing help from your kids or significant other. These are times when you're having trouble raising your shoulder, putting weight on your wrist, bringing the fork to your mouth or reaching behind your back. You never know how much you need your hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder and so forth until you don't have complete use of them.
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The purpose of Occupational Therapy is simply to get you back to being as functional as you were before your injury, trauma, surgery or even the wear and tear of arthritis in order to live your life again. Occupational Therapy first asks "what do you do" and "what are you having trouble doing right now" and then provides the treatment to operate again. For example, a laborer needs to lift 80 pound cement bags and we will work in therapy until the laborer can safely do just that with ease. A grandmother may have a hard time pressing the child seat belt button due to thumb arthritis or an administrator may have carpal tunnel syndrome. You tell us what you need to be able to do, and we find ways to help you do just that.

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At times the treatment regimen includes the exercises for strength, motion or work capacity. It may be adaptive equipment to make things easier around your workstation, home and kitchen or on the golf course. Other times we give you the compensatory strategy education so that you can learn to put on a shirt or tie your shoelaces with one hand if you've had a severe stroke or amputation. Our goal is to give you back your independence. We want to see you doing things on your own again. We want you back on the basketball court, back at work, handwriting easily in school, or even putting dishes away. Those things that occupy your life from day to day are what we work to restore.

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Orthopedic therapy treatment of the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder is done by an Occupational Therapist or a Physical Therapist. Occupational Therapists are specifically trained to treat ONLY the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder while Physical Therapists will also treat backs, hips, knees and ankles. Our concentration in orthopedics as Occupational Therapists is the upper extremity.

 

Our focus is your engagement with society, your work network, your home environment. These days you can control the thermostat, sprinklers, and set the alarm just by using your hands and a cell phone. With our therapy we'll get you outside changing sprinkler heads and replacing air filters too! Therapy is not always easy but certainly worth it.
 

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