Treatment

Working as a team with input from our clients, their families, teachers and employers, other service providers and community organizations, we implement individualized treatment programs focused on positive functional outcomes.

Treatment sessions are held in ‘real world’ settings like the home, workplace, school or community, enhancing learning and speeding up the rehabilitation process. Enabling our clients to achieve their individual functional goals despite ongoing deficits, our treatment revolves around improving skills where improvement is likely, or developing alternate strategies or techniques when improvement in a specific area is not expected.

Available treatments include:

• Individualized Home-Based Occupational Therapy Intervention
• Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Programs
• Community Reintegration
• Personal Care Retraining
• Job Placement and Work Hardening
• Supported Work Return
• Supported School Return
• Assistive Devices Training
• Mobility Device Training
• Housekeeping and Home Maintenance Retraining
• Practical Pain Management Programs and Education
• Cognitive Rehabilitation
• Stress Management Techniques

Individualized Home-Based Occupational Therapy Intervention

Tailored to each client's personal responsibilities, activities, and goals, each program is developed and implemented in the client’s home, workplace and community using the real-life tasks they will need to perform in order to be successful. Clients are taught to implement new strategies and techniques, or change the task or physical set-up to better enable them to achieve their goal.

Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Programs

Brain injury can affect many aspects of an individual's function, including physical skills and abilities, cognitive processes, and psychosocial skills. Our knowledgeable staff brings the weight of their collective experience to the unique challenges faced by individuals living with brain injury. Programs are designed to improve those skills that research shows can recover post-injury, and implement compensatory strategies in the case of a skill deficit. Our focus is practical and based on our understanding that clients with brain injury learn best doing meaningful tasks using an error-free and repetitive approach.

Community Reintegration

Assisting clients as they resume community roles and activities after serious injury or illness, this treatment provides intervention to improve social skills and community awareness. It may include role playing, guided practice being in and interacting in challenging and busy community settings, and community safety training sessions.

Personal Care Retraining

In this treatment, therapists work with clients as they attempt to regain independence in personal care skills. Clients receive repetitive training using specialized techniques based on the client’s assessment, recommended changes to the set-up, and adaptive equipment. Caregivers are taught how to facilitate maximal performance and independence from the client. Treatments often involve body mechanics, energy conservation, work simplification training, and integration of cognitive compensatory strategies such as cue cards into the task or routine.

Job Placement and Work Hardening

Appropriate work placements that provide suitable tasks and hours are developed with employers and agencies in the community, providing an opportunity to prepare for a return to work experience or to develop a new career path. When a client has been out of the work force for some time, or has experienced an injury or illness that has changed their abilities, these placements provide an opportunity to rebuild general work skills and to experiment with new and old activities. 

Supported Work Return

Therapists work with the client and their employer to develop a realistic return to work plan combining a modified or graduated resumption of job tasks and work hours. Required supports such as recommendations for modifications or job coaches are implemented to ensure client success.

Supported School Return

Our therapists work with the client and school staff to develop an individual plan which provides the client with extra learning opportunities and strategies or direction needed to maintain focus in the classroom. Possible elements include simple recommendations for quiet exam rooms, help with note-taking, or an educational or rehabilitation assistant to work one-on-one with the student in or outside of class as needed.

Assistive Devices Training

Specialized equipment and technological aides can greatly enhance performance and eliminate more difficult aspects of a given task. Our therapists assess for and recommend the most suitable aids, and provide the appropriate amount of training based on the requirements of both the equipment and the client.

Mobility Device Training

Specialized mobility equipment like scooters and wheelchairs can greatly enhance an individual’s personal independence. Ease of use and the amount of training required to operate these devices ranges from simple and minimal, to complex and in-depth. Therapists provide an introduction to the device and the appropriate amount of training depending on the requirements of both the equipment and the client.

Housekeeping and Home Maintenance Retraining

Our therapists work with clients to improve their ability to complete home maintenance tasks like cleaning and yard work. We use specialized training techniques based on the client’s assessment, along with the changes to the set-up and adaptive equipment which enables the client to become more independent in the home. Caregivers may be taught how to facilitate maximal performance and independence from the client which enables the client to become more successful and ultimately independent in the home.

Practical Pain Management Programs and Education

Pain may not be curable but our therapists offer a wealth of experience in helping people live satisfying and productive lives in spite of continuing pain. Working in a practical and hands-on way, clients learn to focus on achieving what they need to do, and not allow pain to dominate their lives. Pain reduction, relaxation and stress management strategies further enhance their treatment.

Cognitive Rehabilitation

Cognitive rehabilitation strives to achieve the most independent or highest level of functioning possible for a client. Based on individualized goals that take into consideration the client's current pattern of strengths and weaknesses, our treatment is targeted, practical and geared to developing greater independence, improving everyday functioning and achieving academic and vocational goals. Tasks from the person's school, work, and home environment are used as modalities to return the client to their best level of functioning.

Stress Management Techniques

The effect of stress on brain injury clients already dealing with fatigue, cognitive problems, and disability issues can be debilitating. Stresses relating to changes in their financial, health, or social setting may also be present. Therapists address this issue by offering a practical exploration of stress relieving techniques including relaxation, deep breathing, movement therapies such as yoga and tai chi, meditation, targeted resting, and cognitive strategies (like planning, scheduling and listing) to reduce the sense of being overwhelmed.