April is OT Month: Celebrate Through The Year!

By: Ranjana Hallur, OT/DOR

Occupational therapy is a part of a vitally important profession that helps people across the lifespan to perform everyday activities.  Our holistic and customized approach to evaluation, intervention and outcomes help people to recover from injury and regain skills. The OT team celebrated OT month at Rose Garden Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Toms River, NJ. All facility staff, families, and long-term care patients visited the rehab department to see a poster presentation, use a JAMAR dynamometer to test grip strength, perform a task with non-dominant hand only, and different adaptive equipment to aide in doing ADL’s independently.

Said occasion was graced by Yaffa Lieberman, CEO of Prime Rehabilitation Services, Inc. These are pictures of our OT celebration. 

Picture # 1 Using JAMAR dynamometer for grip strength :

20 lbs. of grip strength is plenty for simple everyday task bags or lifting heavy weights, writing, typing and even opening bottle jars will not be problem.  You might have harder time to carry heavy grocery. For males> 56 lbs is excellent and for female 36 lbs is excellent. 

Picture # 2 Scooping with non-dominant hand:

Everyone practiced scooping ice-cream with non-dominant hand and experienced how difficult it was! 

Attendees were educated on how important it is to use both hands during daily living activities.  Occupational Therapy is helpful to train one handed techniques for personal care as well as daily functional tasks.

Simple task like bringing a spoon from plate to mouth or combing hair is difficult with limited upper extremity range of motion.  Intervention plans are usually directed toward acquisition of anatomical maximal range of motion.  However, it is not always possible in relation to pain, muscle shortness, joint stiffness, contractures, muscle tone,  and arthritis. 

In one study, functional range of motions required to perform every day activities of daily life are 121-135 degree shoulder flexion, 53 degree forearm supination, and 13-120 degree forearm pronation, and 50 degree elbow extension, 45 degree elbow flexion, 20-40 degree wrist ulnar deviation and 15-28 degree wrist radial deviation are required to perform every day activities of daily life.          

Picture #3: Our star rehab team!