Occupational Therapy

At Baystate Health, we know your home, work, school, and recreational activities are important to you. These everyday activities, or occupations, may include intense physical tasks – like heavy lifting on a construction site or in a factory – or they can be as simple as dressing yourself.

Occupational therapy isn’t very different from physical therapy. Occupational therapy focuses on your daily activities and how to complete them with your condition, while physical therapy focuses on improving or eliminating your condition with therapy.

Baystate’s team of occupational therapists will work with you and your doctor to design a treatment plan to help you increase your independence and get back to doing the things you love.

Conditions We Treat with Occupational Therapy

We work with patients on an inpatient and outpatient basis with a wide variety of illnesses and injuries such as:

• Amputations
• Balance, dizziness, and gait problems
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Hand injuries
• Lymphedema 
• Movement disorders 
• Neurological/neuromuscular conditions 
• Repetitive stress injuries
• Spinal injuries 
• Traumatic brain injuries

Occupational Therapy Services We Offer

Our occupational therapy team will teach you how to adapt to increase your independence and productivity at home, at work, or elsewhere. This may include:

• Custom-made splints
• Driving evaluations
• Education for you and your family members/caregivers
• Ergonomic evaluations and treatment
• Exercises to increase your strength, endurance, and range of motion
• Functional assessments and training
• Gait training (how to walk after an injury or illness or with the help of devices)
• Hand therapy
• Instruction on specific skills
• Joint and soft-tissue mobilization
• Joint protection instruction
• Manual therapy (movement of your muscles and joints)
• Pain management
• Recommendations for equipment you can use at home to help you in your daily activities
• Therapeutic exercise
• Training to increase your fine motor coordination
• Training for your daily activities