Speaker: Leighann Warholak, Occupational Therapist
Leighann Warholak: My name is Leighann Warholak. I'm an occupational therapist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I moved to Philadelphia three years ago and I have been working with Ivy Rehab ever since.
Take us through a day in your role as a Certified Hand Therapist at Ivy Rehab?
Leighann Warholak: A typical day in the Philadelphia region. As a hand therapist includes seeing around 14 patients per day. Our treatment interventions include custom orthosis fabrication, which allows us to get very creative. We perform wound care, we do fun activities for functional ADL's. We grow with our patients and see them reach their goals for activities of daily living. And we get to collaborate with our amazing team of hand therapists and see what innovative treatment interventions they're performing.
What do you find most rewarding about hand therapy?
Leighann Warholak: What I find most rewarding as a hand therapist is being able to bridge the gap between wellness and independence. This means I get to use my skill set with anatomy and body mechanics and link it to patients meaningful goals such as being a parent, taking care of your pets, doing your job. We use our hands every single day with all of our activities and it's so important that we be able to use them to reach these things. So it's great to be able to start with things such as getting creative with, um, splinting and doing range of motion and shrink, working up to. How do you use a hammer? How do you type, how do you change your kids onesie? And this allows us to have a meaningful relationship with all of our patients.
