Get back to the activities of daily living

The professionals at CMH Occupational Therapy can help people of all ages who have had a disruption in their independence. This can include a disruption in the ability to perform work, home, childcare, or leisure activities.

Our skilled and caring staff provide specialized training to help patients learn or relearn strategies and enable people to lead independent, productive, and satisfying lives.

Occupational Therapy services

Our services are designed to improve function and independence in all areas of the daily occupations that are important to you. Our experienced occupational therapy team will evaluate and design a program that fits your specific needs to improve your functional abilities. Our staff includes specialty areas in pediatric care, vision and driving, as well as certified hand therapists who specialize in treatment of the shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand. As a small rural hospital we are able to provide a wide range of services so close to home.

• Help patients who are recovering from illness, injury, or surgery regain the ability to perform daily tasks at home or in the workplace
• Provide rehabilitation following a stroke or other neurological event
• Provide hand therapy services under the coordination of a Certified Hand Therapist (CHT)
• Work with patients living with arthritis to decrease their pain and improve their ability to perform daily tasks
• Work with the pediatric population to address a variety of concerns including fine motor and visual motor skills, sensory processing and self-regulation, cognitive skills, and social development
• Oversee specialized and custom splinting
• Provide adaptive equipment and assistive devices to improve independence in daily living tasks
• Provide therapeutic exercises to enhance endurance, strength, and function
• Share environmental adaptations that can be used at work and at home
• Provide our Community Mobility Skills Assessment to determine a person’s current fitness to drive by assessing vision, thinking skills, and physical motor control
• Improve pain and function with state-of-the-art modalities, such as Low Light Laser Therapy and the BTE Simulator II
• Provide comprehensive return-to-work services, including work hardening, work conditioning, and Functional Capacity Evaluation; the Functional Capacity Evaluation is a 2-day standardized test to evaluate a patient’s ability to perform work abilities

Occupational Therapy is part of CMH’s Concussion Rehabilitation Program Team

Are you experiencing sleepiness, nausea, more frequent headaches, dizziness, difficulty concentrating or mental fog, sensitivity to light or noise, or vision problems? You may be experiencing the effects of a concussion: a traumatic injury causing the temporary loss of normal brain function.

Early intervention is crucial to concussion patients’ recovery. The CMH Concussion Rehabilitation Program works with this concept in mind—offering compensatory techniques to lessen symptoms and identify functional impairments before they affect performance.

As part of the program, occupational therapy assesses and treats impairments related to vision, motor planning, and functional cognition including processing speed and reaction time, self-care performance, headache pain management, and upper extremity function. Our team is here to guide you through every step of recovery.

Ask your physician for a referral to the CMH Concussion Rehabilitation Program.

Occupational Therapy is available for patients who may be suffering from long COVID

The challenges that may accompany COVID-19 can continue for many weeks or months following a diagnosis and can drastically impact a person’s well being and ability to conduct their daily life.

Occupational Therapy can help you take your life back! Our interventions include:

• Home safety assessment and recommendations to decrease reliance on caregivers
• Education on energy conservation
• Cognitive strategies including normalization of routines and sleep/wake cycles, and memory strategies
• Splinting and orthotic management to prevent pressure injuries and preserve range of motion
• Support for mental health, including anxiety management
• Support for re-integration into work and school demands

Overcome mealtime challenges with CMH’s Feeding Program

Mealtime challenges make family bonding stressful. Together, our Occupational and Speech Therapists are helping patients from infancy through age 18 overcome their feeding challenges with custom, evidence based recommendations.

CMH’s Feeding Program combines the expertise of occupational (OTs) and speech therapists (SLPs) to address difficulties with mealtime, including

• Crying or arching during feeding
• Challenges transitioning to solids or new textures
• Limited diet ‘picky eating’
• Poor weight gain
• Problems chewing, overstuffing, or holding food in mouth

Feeding challenges may arise due to a variety of causes such as premature birth, reflux/stomach problems, developmental conditions, and more.

It’s possible to bring joy back to family mealtime. A feeding evaluation at CMH includes:

• Observing the child eating
• Discussions with the family
• Oral-motor, swallowing, and sensory processing assessments

Our goal is to teach patients that mealtimes can be fun, and to introduce new foods safely and gradually. Our teaching strategies support development of the muscles in the mouth, jaw, tongue, lips and cheeks to make eating easier and address any texture sensitivities to food. We use a variety of tools to help with sensory challenges that may be impacting mealtimes. We also offer recommendations for alternative positioning or use of different bottles, cups, utensils, or plates.

A new lease on life: a CMH Occupational Therapy testimonial

Sean Cain suffered a serious motorcycle accident in 2005. The accident required him to have 17 surgeries in 13 years. Although Sean pursued recovery treatment elsewhere, it wasn’t until he became a patient at CMH in 2017 that he began to see life-changing results. Through a combination of physical, speech, and occupational therapy, Sean was able to finally solve the traumatic brain injury symptoms he had been suffering for over a decade. He credits the caring and understanding rehabilitation staff for the confidence he has regained in himself.