Supporting the Holistic Treatment of Adults with Upper Extremity Injuries: Bridging the Gap Between the Clinic and Classroom

Research continues to support the need for holistic and occupation-based treatment of patients with upper extremity (UE) injuries, therefore, occupational therapy students (OTS) would benefit from continued education supporting holistic hand therapy. Thus, the purpose of this capstone experience was to offer a capstone student with an opportunity to provide holistic hand therapy, explore and address barriers to delivering holistic therapy services, and following reflection, use the knowledge and skills gained through this experience to create supplemental educational materials to further peer education in holistic hand therapy. While providing direct patient care, the capstone student developed a better understanding of psychosocial factors affecting patients’ quality of life, provided holistic hand therapy to patients with UE injuries, and created two questionnaires that assessed therapists’ and patients’ perceptions of holistic therapy. The capstone student found that OTS should be prepared with informal and formal evaluation strategies to assess emotional pain, anxiety, stress, professional pressure and satisfaction, sleep disruptions, and interpersonal conflict. Also, OTS should be prepared to utilize treatment and coping strategies such as mindfulness training, motivational interviewing, and therapeutic use of self to address psychosocial symptoms. Utilizing clinical experience, questionnaire findings, and current literature, the capstone student created supplemental course modules and educational materials to improve the holistic assessment and treatment of patients with UE injuries. As occupational therapists are ideally situated to provide holistic care, OTS would benefit from additional educational opportunities to improve holistic hand therapy skills and professional advocacy efforts in supporting holistic hand therapy education and research