EARH welcomes new occupational therapist

Occupational therapy is now available at East Adams Rural Hospital because of the recent addition of Heather Wagner. Wagner, employed by Odessa Memorial Hospital, travels to Ritzville every Thursday to work with individuals in need of occupational therapy.

While occupational therapy is commonly associated with the physical therapy (PT) practice, it differs greatly because of the focus for treatment. Occupational therapy (OT) services typically help individuals gain the ability to participate in daily activities through therapeutic exercises.

Wagner is a recent graduate from Eastern Washington University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and a Master’s degree in occupational therapy. Wagner completed 70 hours of volunteer work in order to enter the occupational therapy school.

During her first six months of fieldwork, Wagner worked at Franklin Hills Health and Rehabilitation Center in Spokane. She then worked with an occupational therapist that traveled to local schools in the area to help students with coordination and motor skills.

In June of last year, Wagner began communicating her interest in obtaining an occupational therapist position with the Odessa hospital. Wagner also travels to Davenport one day a week and started her visitations to Ritzville three weeks ago.

Wagner began working part time for the hospital in January and looks forward to her visits to Ritzville because of her experience and love for small towns.

“I grew up in small towns and knew I would be coming back. I’ve always wanted to be in health care and help people,” said Wagner. “I shadowed an occupational therapist, and I liked making the treatment meaningful to the patient and it being individualized.”

Occupational therapy is a relatively new practice but is quickly becoming part of regular health care practices. Wagner hopes to educate and spread the word about OT in order to help as many people as possible.

As Wagner explains, OT differs from PT because PT looks at dysfunction and how the muscle and joint are not working together. OT looks at how joints are not working and how that impacts every day activities and how an individual can compensate for those dysfunctions.

OT focuses on restoring function in order for patients to complete and perform their normal daily activities. OT provides patients with tools that can assist the patient such as adaptive utensils for eating and reaching tools with sponges to assist with bathing.

The end goal for OT is to allow the patient to become as independent as possible. Wagner sees patients based on a doctor’s referral and works with the elderly, individuals injured in the work place and children.

“I have to know how to do a little of everything out here, especially since I’m the only one,” said Wagner. “I have the most experience with the geriatric population and I’m comfortable and enjoy it. But the key is with every population to have positivity.”

Most therapists, both physical and occupational, do not have just one focus or specialty. For Wagner, it is important that she works with all different types of patients

“Occupational therapy is a broad field and something that is constantly a learning experience. The challenges keep you on your feet and keeps me up to date,” said Wagner.

For treatment of the limitations that are preventing patients from maintaining a regular lifestyle, Wagner typically attempts to go into the home of the patient to understand the habitat the individual is living in. It is this process that allows Wagner to focus treatment and to work on eliminating any limiting factor from her patients life.

“It is important to age in place, in their own home, without cognitive or physical limitations,” said Wagner. “My goal is to keep them at home as long as possible and keep them safe.”

While the title of “occupational” therapy may generally refer to a career, Wagner stresses the importance that the occupation part of her title refers to activities, not specifically a job. The purpose of OT is to focus on a limitation and work on restoring that function for the patient.

For a patient to fully recover from their limitation, Wagner observes the patient’s entire schedule and how the activity that is hindering them can be fixed. She teaches new techniques that can help the patient strengthen the affected joint and regain a regular lifestyle.

An example Wagner gave is that is she is working with a construction worker that needs to be able to hammer again; she would have the patient take her through an imitation of that activity. She observes the activity as a whole, and would not solely focus on the shoulder, which may seem to be the problem.

Wagner found her passion in OT mainly because of how much she enjoys the individuality of the work and enjoys working with patients on their specific issue. She also is glad that she has the opportunity to provide rural communities with OT because a lot of small towns do not have access to the program.

“It is really important to me that I come back and give back to the community that I grew up in. It has always been important to me to give back to the community that gave so much to me,” said Wagner. “Seeing how your patients are happy and enabling them to do something they didn’t think they could is the best part of my job.”