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FARMINGTON — The Franklin Memorial Hospital occupational therapy department is using a new team approach for providing treatment of conditions and injuries of the upper extremities.
Best known as “hand therapy,” the treatment is actually much broader and may also include treatment of the wrist, elbow, rotator cuff and shoulder.
The hand therapy treatment team includes occupational therapists Jessaka Nichols, Theresa Desjardins, and the newest member, Elizabeth Barton.
Shelley Rau, who worked as a certified hand therapist for more than 25 years, is providing on-site consultation to the team and mentorship. The team approach provides a continuum of care often starting within days of a patient’s injury or surgery, creating an individualized and comprehensive treatment program that may include therapeutic exercise, orthosis design and fitting, activity modification, compression therapy, sensory re-education, and pain management, among others.
The treatment plan is updated regularly to allow patients the ability to return to purposeful and meaningful activity at work, school, home, or leisure tasks as rapidly as possible. A referral from a provider is needed for appointments.
For more information, call 207-779-2620.
PHOTO: From left, Elizabeth Barton, Theresa Desjardins, Shelley Rau and Jessaka Nichols, Franklin Memorial Hospital’s hand therapy treatment team. (Submitted photo)
