God has healed my body because when I had the stroke in 2020, June of 2020, I couldn't walk, talk, drive, I'm still presently in the recovery process.

I've had many therapy sessions, occupational as well as PT physical.

many times people are referred for outpatient therapy services.

So there would be a clinic with OT and speech language pathology, and the stroke survivor would get continued rehab.

They live at their home, but they go to the clinic for therapy.

The problem is the stroke specialists, are few and far between in South Carolina.

And so in the rural counties, which is most of South Carolina, it's very hard for people to get to those clinics.

So what we're trying to do with our stroke tele rehabilitation program is give people who live in these rural areas better access to rehab.

18 00:01:04,597 --> 00:01:07,867 tele rehab session is really very interactive.

Usually there's a clinician and a participant interacting virtually.

and the participant is working on real life meaningful activities.

Prepare my meals, wash dishes, tie my shoes, button up blouses.

I did a lot of exercise that entailed using my left hand, which helped me a lot.

If I could give you one take away, that would be the biggest one: continue to use that left hand as much as you can in your day to day.

a clinician who is delivering OT services or rehab services virtually versus in person has to really think about how they're using their voice therapeutically.

And so we fall more into a coaching role because we are not able to obviously facilitate things hands on.

But we can still teach, we can still guide, we can still coach.

We just have to use our words very craftily to do so.

So now, as you go in, prepare to do this activity of taking the grocery items and putting them back in your cabinet.

How are you going to change or revise your plan specifically to make sure that you have enough control of each item before you place them in the cabinet?

we're not telling them how to do a specific task.

We're asking them to problem solve what they could do differently to improve.

they start to think about that.

And then when they do a new task, when we're not there, they start to think on their own.

How can they change something to support their success with this task?

one of the key differences that many people ask about from the get go is how do we keep a patient safe?

So one of the main things that we focus on first and foremost is our emergency response protocol.

We can't be there in person with a patient as we're working with them.

And so we spend extra time, you know, validating where their physical location is, who's in the in the house or in the room with them, how they're feeling that day, if there were any differences.

do a People are worried after they've had a stroke.

It's very common for people to be worried.

Expressed anxiety fear, It occurs in well over half, almost 80% of people after stroke.

And then within that group, about a third are diagnosed with And so what that says is that emotional wellness or the mental health aspects of stroke are prevalent, are I had a lot of emotional changes, which I did a lot of therapy, that is mental health therapy to help control the mental aspect of it.

It causes a lot of depression, feelings of.

I won't say suicide, but not being good no more or good enough for anybody or to be on this earth, And so helping them learn to be aware of how they're thinking and starting to reframe those thoughts to make them more balanced while still acknowledging, the, the That a stroke has on somebody because it results in tremendous loss and tremendous difficulties with engaging in activities that were meaningful education.

So we modified a cognitive behavioral therapy and tied it into the existing occupational therapy tell recap program that we So the idea is that while people are recovering their movement skills or their language skills, they're also learning skills for dealing with anxiety and worry and dread and because teller rehabilitation isn't useful for only people with stroke.

Teller rehab.

This method of providing therapy can be used for so many other types of diagnoses.

I want this model to be used for many different people, many different ages, many different diagnoses in many different parts of the state.

And I just want therapists to feel confident that this is a way to provide really good therapy to the client who needs go there are people everywhere who have had a stroke.

There are people everywhere who need rehab that cannot access it.

And if we can teach the next generation of students, of clinicians how to do tell a rehab in a very sustainable and efficient and safe way, the way that we have developed this model of care, it will really expand our ability to allow people and individuals who have any need for rehab to access that care.