How does a recreational therapist help with the transition from hospital to home? - Jennifer Piatt, PhD

One of the most important key components is community integration. One of our best skills-and a lot of our patients are going back to rural areas in the United States with minimal resources, with minimal accessible places to go. And so we sit down with them and say “Okay, what do you want to do? What do you want your life to look like when you’re leaving the hospital? And we can help you make that happen.” The other thing I really co-treated the entire time I was on the rehab unit with occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists, and I think teaching those behavioral interventions of when insurance may not be covering all those therapies-what can you do as an individual to be empowered to take control of your life and still be really healthy and active. One of the physicians I was fortunate enough to work with was a recreational therapist on the spinal cord injury unit. I will never forget during treatment team, he looked at the patient and said, “that woman in the corner, she’s one of the most important people to you right now because she’s going to look at what you want to do once you leave this hospital. And she’s going to make sure you have the information and resources necessary so you can do that.”