July / August / September • Issue 3 • 2019
communiqué
THE
Illinois Occupational Therapy Assocation
Ashley Buksa, MSOT Student
In This Issue
President’s Address
Page 2
Meet the Board, Jacob
Garrison, OTR/L
Pages 5-6
What Is New in the World
of Orthopedic Hand
Therapy?
Pages 7-8
Driver’s Rehabilitation and the Role
of Occupational Therapy at Marianjoy
Rehabilitation Hospital
I had the pleasure of interviewing
Brandon Lesch, an Occupational Therapist
at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in
Wheaton, Illinois. Brandon is also part
of the Marianjoy Center of Excellence for
Driver Rehabilitation team that Marianjoy
provides as one of their many services to
their patients and community. Brandon’s
enthusiasm for driver’s rehab and the bond
he is able to build with the clients he works
with is evident. He is a true believer that OT
in the context of driver’s rehabilitation can
provide the client with the independence he
or she needs to live a fulfilling life. Brandon’s
work at Marianjoy reflects both dedication
to the profession of OT and to his clients.
The following article is a summary of the
interview I conducted with Brandon.
What interested you in working at
Marianjoy and with the populations that
you typically serve?
Though I always wanted to work with
children, completing my level II fieldwork
at Marianjoy on their stroke unit made me
realize how much I loved inpatient rehab
and how much I cherished the bond I could
make specifically with younger males in
the rehab setting. In terms of driver rehab,
seeing such a wide variety of diagnoses on
a weekly basis really adds to the challenge.
It’s a neat feeling to help teach a 16-year-
old with autism how to drive and then the
next hour help train a young adult how to
use electronic hand controls after a spinal
cord injury, before evaluating an elderly
person whose children had concerns with
their driving. Working in both driver rehab
and inpatient brain injury is truly the best
of both worlds in my opinion. I get to help
the most severe patients we see out of bed
and get dressed in their own clothes for the
first time in a long time. Sometimes I get to
be the therapist that tells that same patient,
“OK, you can drive on your own now” after
months and sometimes years of rehab.
What driver rehab programs are available
at Marianjoy, and what populations do
you work with?
Name a diagnosis and we’ve probably
seen it in our driver rehab department.
We evaluate and train teens that the
school district or typical driving schools
cannot accommodate. We see patients with
cognitive or physical needs, clients with
low vision including those using BiOptic
telescope lenses, elderly patients who may
not be able to still handle the demands of
driving, previous drivers that may now need
to use adaptive equipment like hand controls
(both mechanical and high-tech/electronic)
Continued on Page 3