Speaker: John Paul Bonadonna, OTD, OTR/L, CSRS, LSVT BIG
Why did you choose to focus on neurological rehabilitation?
John Paul Bonadonna: Uh When I was 17, I was diagnosed with epilepsy, I started to have lots of tonic clonic seizures, partial seizures, and I was hospitalized several times because of that.
John Paul Bonadonna: And so at that point, I became obsessed and in love with the brain, not just epilepsy but other diagnoses such as ALS, MS, Parkinson's disease, and of course, stroke. What led me directly toward wanting to work with people who have had a stroke, is my close work with my mentor, Doctor Susan Fasoli, who worked with combining robot assisted therapy and rigorous occupational therapy services to deliver a really holistic program.
How do you approach your work with patients?
John Paul Bonadonna: Ultimately, I want to teach a patient how to be their own therapist, right? A lot of times we assign home exercise programs or tell a patient what to do. But I want to make sure that you as a patient know why you're doing what you're doing and how it's going to make a real functional change in your everyday life. So that in the long term, you can be your own therapist and use your problem solving skills in order to complete a meaningful or purposeful activity.
John Paul Bonadonna: We as occupational therapists, like to take a holistic approach. So I'm not only concentrating on your physical impairments, or your ability to engage in certain activities, but I'm also looking at things like mental health. How are you doing? Is there a way that we can tackle [your mental health] as well so that you can have the highest quality of life possible?
What makes Imago better than other rehab services?
John Paul Bonadonna: Imago Rehab uses a very unique and novel approach when it comes to stroke rehabilitation. It's something I'd never used prior to joining the team. The first thing we like to say is "life is therapy." This is occupational therapy, so we're working on those meaningful, purposeful activities that you need to do on a daily basis. But what's a better way to approach that? We are not just a home exercise program. It's much more comprehensive than that, and the first approach I think is the most interesting is this cognitive component. We want to work with you so that you can develop your own strategies to increase your independence in your everyday activities. For example, if you're having some difficulty with elbow extension, what are some different strategies that we can use that you're able to do that on your own outside of our therapy sessions together.
How do you help patients achieve lasting improvement?
John Paul Bonadonna: There are many strategies that I, as an occupational therapist, use in order to ensure that patients have long lasting change or improvement. The first and most important of those is teaching the patient how to be their own therapist. Changing their way of thinking when it comes to doing an activity or engaging in their movement practice. And, how can we get patients to develop their own strategies for problem solving that can be used well past their time at Imago Rehab.
John Paul Bonadonna: A lot of times in therapy, we focus too much on home exercise programs. Different repetition. But what is our ultimate goal as occupational therapists? It's to make you more independent in the everyday activities that are meaningful to you, or that you have to do. So, yes, repetition is important. We need lots of that. But we always take it back to function. What are your functional goals?
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