Burnett Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Department Is Here To Provide Care To Those Within Our Community

News Release

BURNETT COUNTY -- Burnett Medical Center’s Rehabilitation Department is here to provide care to those within our community. This includes our Occupational Therapist, Janelle Smestad, who is dedicated to your needs and ensuring you can get back to life.

Janelle’s role as an Occupational Therapist is important to our healthcare system and is an integral part of our patient’s lives. She is trained to assist patients, across the lifespan, to accomplish daily activities, occupations and tasks that are meaningful to them. Ultimately, improving or restoring their quality of life whether they have a medical condition or injury that limits their ability to participate in everyday activities.

As a patient, she will review your ability to perform daily activities such as hygiene routines, getting dressed, and cooking yourself a meal. Then she will focus treatment interventions on improving your ability to complete those activities of daily living.

In addition, Janelle can evaluate each patient’s physical environment and their social support systems. She can determine what components may be limiting a patient from being able to complete his/her activities of daily living, such as upper body range of motion and strength, coordination, endurance, pain or cognition. During an Occupational Therapy evaluation, each patient gets a customized treatment plan that fits his/her needs. Some treatments include:

• * Adaptive equipment education and training
• * Cognitive testing
• * Home safety assessments
• * Neurological rehabilitation techniques
• * Pain relief modalities
• * Range of motion, strengthening and coordination exercises for the upper extremities
• * Return to work analysis and training
• * Selfcare management and training
• * Upper extremity splint fitting and management

Whether a patient has a disability, is recovering from an injury, or is experiencing physical and cognitive changes, our Occupational Therapist is here to help you get back to living life to it fullest.