Occupational Therapy

People mix us up with physical therapy, which is fair. The simplest way to tell them apart: physical therapy works on how your body moves, and we work on what you are trying to accomplish with it.

A patient can walk the length of the therapy gym and still be unable to fasten a shirt, lift a skillet, climb into a truck, or get out of a bathtub without help. Those are our problems.

We work with people after a stroke, after hand and arm injuries, after joint replacement, and after any hospital stay long enough to have taken away their independence. We also treat children with fine motor and sensory difficulties, in coordination with the school.

A good deal of the work is unglamorous and decisive. Splinting a hand so it heals in a usable position. Finding the one piece of equipment that makes a kitchen workable again. Walking through a house with a family and pointing out that the throw rug in the hallway is the single most dangerous object in the building.

We also train the family members who will be doing the helping, because sending someone home with instructions nobody else heard is how people end up back in the hospital.