Scott Webb (Host): Occupational therapy is not just for people who have work-related physical issues. In fact, occupational therapists help people with a variety of conditions. And today, we're focusing on common hand conditions with occupational therapist, Katie Vaughn, from Franciscan Health.

 This is the Franciscan Health Doc Pod. I'm Scott Webb. Katie, thanks so much for your time today. We're going to learn about you and what you do in occupational therapy, OT as they call it, and especially occupational therapy for common hand conditions. But before we get there, just a little baseline here for listeners, what is occupational therapy? What does that mean? And what do you do?

Katie Vaughn: So, occupational therapy is a pretty broad spectrum of therapy that focuses on things you would want or need to do for your daily life. That would be a textbook definition. Interventions, they use everyday life activities, also known as occupations, to help promote health, well-being and your ability to participate in important activities in your specific life.

The cool thing about occupational therapy is that it can look different amongst all populations. For example, there is pediatrics, there is neurological patients. And then myself, I work in orthopedic, which would be hand therapy. To become a hand therapist, you have to have an occupational therapy degree. And then from there, it's an advanced continuing education where you become proficient in treatment of pathological conditions of the upper extremity from disease to trauma, congenital or acquired deformities.

Host: Yeah. So, good sense there of what you do and how occupational therapists can help folks. As you say, it's not one-size-fits-all and you treat all sorts of patients from, you know, pediatric patients on up. Let's talk about the hand conditions that you mentioned there. What are the common hand conditions that you generally see and help to treat?

Katie Vaughn: So, there is congenital or an acquired deformity. That can take on the form of anything from arthritis, like rheumatic-type diseases. There's vascular disorders, which are genetic like Raynaud's. And then, it can go into more trauma, which can be fractures, broken bones to amputations. We see a lot of wounds and scars in the hands, which can become problematic. And then, you have your overuse injuries as well, which can be muscular, strains or tears, ligament injuries, tendon injuries that are common, would be a good old tennis elbow or golfer's elbow to nerve injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome.

Host: Yeah. So, lots of stuff. I wake up with more of an osteoarthritis kind of thing where my hands are just really achy and sore in the morning.

Katie Vaughn: Sore and stiff, probably.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. And it's advanced age and, you know, just the things that we all do as people during our lives, of course. So, how specifically do you help folks? Maybe you could just take us through that a little bit, just generally speaking, not every single thing. But in general, when folks come into the office, how does that work?

Katie Vaughn: Depending on what you're coming in to see us for. For example, if you came in after a surgery, you had a broken bone or a tendon injury, we would go through an assessment process. And then, we generally follow a protocol provided by your surgeons to help provide immediate care and effective treatment to help progress you through the process of that wound healing, getting your motion back and building your strength to get back to functional use after a traumatic injury.

And then in addition, you come in with maybe more of a chronic pain, like a tennis elbow or carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis. We do a lot of things for that too, even if they are not surgical. We do a lot of education with those patients on good body mechanics to pain control. And then, we also have the opportunity to assess do you have full motion in your grip or are you weak in some area of your arm, your shoulder, your hands? And we're able to facilitate exercises for home to help compensate for those chronic issues that you may present with.

Host: That's great. Yeah. So obviously, really comprehensive. Probably really listening to patients before, after surgery. You kind of cover the whole gamut there. Wondering as we wrap up here, if they have these, you know, common hand conditions that we're talking about today, do they need a physician's referral to see you?

Katie Vaughn: New to us, relatively in the past year, patients do not need a physician's referral. They can come in through direct access. Direct access is essentially a self referral and that is accepted by most insurance plans. I would always encourage people to double check, with their insurance prior to that, but we do allow direct access. That gives hand therapist up to 42 days to treat patients before we would either need a physician's order, or I would reach out to maybe a primary care doctor with approval from my patient to get a signed plan in place. Long story, we do allow 42 days through direct access before we would have to have a physician referral.

Host: Yeah, I love that, direct access. It's been my experience with physical therapy and things like that, that I always had to go through my primary first, but maybe that's because I have an HMO. But maybe that's a different podcast, right?

Katie Vaughn: That's another day.

Host: Yeah. So, nice to meet you today. Nice to learn what you do. Common hand conditions are, you know, common, whether it's me like, you know, with arthritis or injuries or surgery, whatever it might be. So, good to give listeners a sense today of how you can help folks there in the office, how you take them through the process and work with them. Not one-size-fits-all, all that good stuff. So, thank you so much. You stay well.

Katie Vaughn: Thanks, Scott. Thank you for, chatting with me.

Host: And for more information regarding occupational therapy services at Franciscan Health, go to franciscanhealth.Org and search occupational therapy. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and be sure to check out the full podcast library for additional topics of interest. This is the Franciscan Health Doc Pod. I'm Scott Webb. Stay well, and we'll talk again next time.