Downstate Celebrates Occupational Therapy Month
By Office of Communications & Marketing | Apr 12, 2022
Occupational Therapists Month celebrates occupational therapists, educates the public, and advances the profession of these essential members of the healthcare team.
For those recuperating from physical or mental illnesses, occupational therapists provide rehabilitation therapy by helping patients more easily perform daily tasks with customized strategies and environments to develop and maximize patients’ potential.
Occupational therapists study the movements required to safely make these transitions and retrain newly repaired body parts using therapies to improve weakened muscles. This impactful work helps patients of all ages participate in daily activities or live better with injury, illness, or disability.
Occupational therapists provide resources as advocates to improve healthcare and focus on a person’s psychological, physical, emotional, and social make-up. Occupational therapy helps people achieve their goals by functioning at the highest possible level and maintaining and rebuilding independence.
Occupational therapists are in schools, hospitals, outpatient clinics, home health agencies, mental health facilities, and in private practices; their work has often been credited with reducing hospital readmissions.
As we honor occupational therapists during this month, I want to send special thanks to those who nurture and educate future therapists and our clinicians who provide care and therapy to patients here at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and University Hospital at Downstate, respectively. Your advocacy and efforts are recognized and celebrated each day. However, this honor is especially significant to share during April.
To learn more about our Occupational Therapy program at Downstate, click here.
I wish you a happy Occupational Therapy Month!
### Contact: Dawn S. Walker About SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University is the borough's only academic medical center
for health education, research, and patient care. It is a 342-bed facility serving
the healthcare needs of New York City and Brooklyn's 2.6 million residents. University
Hospital of Brooklyn (UHB) is Downstate's teaching hospital, backed by an outstanding
medical school's expertise and world-class academic center research facilities. More
than 800 physicians, representing 53 specialties and subspecialties—many of them ranked
as tops in their fields—comprise Downstate's staff. In addition to high-risk neonatal and infant services, pediatric nephrology, and dialysis
(kidney diseases)—and offering the only kidney transplantation program in Brooklyn,
among many other distinctive programs—Downstate also sponsors a major learning center
for young children with developmental disorders and disabilities. In addition to UHB,
Downstate comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions,
a School of Graduate Studies, a School of Public Health, and a multifaceted biotechnology
initiative, including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage
and more mature companies, respectively. For more information, visit www.downstate.edu or follow us on Twitter at @sunydownstate.
917.439.9666 | 347.533.2071
dawn.walker@downstate.edu