Physical Therapy

The Menorah Park Outpatient Rehabilitation Services includes a team of health care professionals dedicated to providing quality health care in order to encourage prevention, facilitate healing and instill lifelong wellness.

Our team of physical, occupational and speech therapists work together to provide creative solutions for you in your healing process. 

We offer:

• One-on-one individualized treatment with licensed therapists at every visit
• Personalized programs designed with your therapist to meet your goals
• Treatment for clients of all ages and faiths
• Specialized programs including aquatic, driving, and hand therapy
• Free transportation on a first-come, first-served basis
• Continence Control

Whether you need only one therapy or all our services, we will work with you to coordinate your appointments at a time that’s convenient for you, including early morning or evening appointments. 

Occupational therapy

Occupational Therapy helps people across the lifespan to do the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of daily activities (occupations). These may be related to activities of daily living, leisure activities and job performance. Occupational therapy practitioners enable people of all ages to live life to its fullest by helping them promote health, and prevent—or live better with—injury, illness, or disability. 

Occupational Therapists specialize in treating the following:

Diagnoses:

• Neurological conditions: Stroke, Spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis
• Orthopedic conditions: Arthritis, upper extremity and hand injuries, and joint replacements
• Nerve injuries/ compression
• Traumatic injuries and post-surgical therapy
• Tendonitis
• Sprains
• Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS)

Treatment Interventions:

• Activity modification
• Activity analysis
• Adaptive equipment 
• Education
• Therapeutic exercise
• Edema control
• Orthotic interventions
• Modalities for pain

DriveWise

This unique program provides a comprehensive driving assessment to licensed individuals who wish to continue or return to driving. The evaluation process generally includes tests of physical function, vision, perception, attention, motor function, and reaction time, in addition to actual on road driving performance tests. The assessment is completed using specialized equipment under the supervision of an Occupational Therapist who has additional education and training specific to driver evaluation.

Hand Therapy

Healing Hands, Improving Lives

Menorah Park’s Hand Therapy Clinic specializes in the treatment of complex traumatic injuries and post-surgical procedures, as well as more common problems involving the upper extremity. Therapy is provided with the expertise of a Certified Hand Therapist who provides specific treatments that include surgical repair of tendons and nerves, fractures, amputations and burns. Hand Therapy also includes treatment for conditions such as tendonitis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Treatment may involve custom splint fabrication for prevention or correction of an injury, management of acute or chronic pain, training in use of adaptive equipment, and exercise programs to increase motion, dexterity and strength.

Our Certified Hand Therapist, Kathy Ondak, OTR/L, CHT, works closely with physicians and clients to provide a continuum of care.  Treatment often begins within days of the injury or surgery and continues until the client has returned to a productive lifestyle.  

Benefits of working with a Hand Therapist

The hand’s complex anatomy and function allow us to perform all of the activities that are necessary for daily living and so imperative to our quality of life.  The ability to use our hands is critical to everything we do every day.  Since we use our hands all day long, we want to be assured that we will receive the best care available to recover from any injury, surgery, or medical condition of the upper extremity.  Put your hands in the very best care.  Ask for the expertise of a Certified Hand Therapist at Menorah Park.

Speech Therapy

Speech therapy is a vital part of recovery from many illnesses, and may be used to help manage conditions that affect speech, language, eating, swallowing and memory.

Speech therapy can help you gain greater control over speaking and language skills. A medical issue, onset of motor-skill affecting conditions, brain injury, or accidents that cause damage to the throat, jaw, or facial structure can also impair speaking ability.  Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, or strokes are just some examples. Other people may require adult speech therapy due to mental difficulties which affect comprehension of language, the ability to speak clearly and memory problems. In addition, speech therapists work with individuals that have difficulty chewing or swallowing food.  At times, they may utilize a specialized technique, to regain swallowing, referred to as Vital-Stim. 

FEES: Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing

The FEES procedure is a special test that will help your doctor and speech therapist learn why you are having difficulty swallowing.  A thin, flexible tube with a small camera on the end is passed through your nose to the middle of your throat.  This may be uncomfortable as the tube is inserted, it will take just a few seconds.  During the test, you will be given colored foods and liquids to chew and swallow.  During the procedure, the speech therapist will view and record pictures of your throat on a screen as you are swallowing. 

When is a FEES test needed? 

• Voice changes
• Experience drooling 
• Repeated choking and coughing when swallowing
• Severe tiredness or fatigue during meals
• Severe weight loss due to swallowing problems 
• Unable to have another type of swallowing test (modified barium swallow)
• At risk for swallowing fluids or foods into the lungs (known as aspiration)

Benefits of a FEES procedure

• Determine your ability to swallow 
• Determine whether food or liquids go into your airway
• Decide whether you are able to eat safely 
• Determine the liquids and foods that are safest to include in your diet
• Many health problems can lead to dysphagia (inability to swallow) such as:  stroke, head injury, neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s

What happens after the FEES procedure?

• Review and share the results with your doctor
• Recommend what you should eat and ways to do so safely
• Meet with you to review the results of the procedure and establish a plan to help you eat and drink safely, if possible.

LSVT LOUD®

LSVT LOUD® is a standardized speech treatment program designed for individuals diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Improves both the voice and speech by treating the underlying physical pathology associated with disordered voice.

Treatment is delivered by an LSVT LOUD® certified Speech Language Pathologist and improves both voice and speech. 

90% of patients improve vocal loudness from pre to post-treatment. 

ALL patients report improvement in their ability to communicate

Aquatic Physical Therapy

Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center

McKenzie Back & Neck Therapy

Suffering from lower back or neck pain can affect every part of daily life. Whether sitting in the car, standing to brush teeth, bending to put on shoes, or trying to carry groceries, the simplest chores can be excruciating. The McKenzie Method has been proven to decrease short-term pain and disability, and is better than strength training, use of anti-inflammatory medications, or spinal mobilization.

Lewis Aquatic Center has offered Certified McKenzie Therapy since 2000. With an emphasis on active patient involvement, our certified McKenzie Practitioners will prescribe a personalized exercise program for each client, and provide advanced hands-on techniques to manage symptoms and improve mobility.

Balance Therapy & Fall Prevention

One of three people 65 years of age and older falls each year.

The Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center Balance Therapy is designed to prevent falls and improve mobility. This specialized physical therapy focuses on improving balance, reducing risk of falls and improving your level of confidence and security.  If you are worried about falling or have experienced issues with balance, mobility or dizziness, we can help you. 

The program begins with a comprehensive, balance evaluation with a licensed physical therapist, including an assessment of balance, vision, dizziness and strength as well as walking and movement tasks. Following the evaluation, your individualized program is developed to improve your strength, balance, and meet your goals.

Preventing falls:  Tips from the Experts at the Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center: 

• Review your medications with your health care provider.  Many medications or combinations of medications can make you sleepy or dizzy.
• Have your vision checked at least once a year.
• Make your home safer:
• Declutter your home.  Remove things you can trip over.
• Remove small throw rugs or use double sided tape to keep them in place.
• Install grab bars next to your toilet and in your shower.
• Use non-slip mats in the bathtub/shower.
• Improve the lighting in your home.
• Wear shoes both inside and outside the home. Avoid going barefoot and wearing slippers.

Therapy for dizziness

With your diagnosis, our therapists can correctly interpret subtle signs and symptoms with prescribed and proven treatments of challenges in balance, dizziness and vertigo symptoms. We’ll assist you in improving your walking ability, balance, and coordination of posture if you suffer from inner ear disorders.   

Why might Vestibular Rehabilitation (VRT) be useful to you?

The goal of VRT is to retrain the inner ear and the brain to correctly and accurately recognize and process signals from your vestibular system in coordination with your vision and proprioception (your body’s sense of where you are in space). While most people who complain of vertigo have BPPV that can be solved rather efficiently in 1-4 sessions of therapy, sometimes more complex cases  involve desensitizing the balance system to those normal movements that provoke your vertigo symptoms such as nausea, and instability, and/or balance issues.

When your inner ear system is compromised, you may become overly dependent on input from your vision and proprioception to maintain your balance.  In addition, you may compensate by developing new patterns of head and body movement to avoid dizziness and nausea. For example, a person with a vestibular disorder might turn their entire body rather than just the head when turning to look at something to avoid provoking their symptoms. As you may have experienced, these compensations can worsen symptoms, often causing headache, muscle tension, and fatigue.

What happens during VRT?

After a complete evaluation at The Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center, your individualized treatment plan is developed that includes specific head, body, and eye exercises to be performed both during therapy and at home. Your recommended home-based activities and exercise provide you with the information you need to help strengthen your muscles to reduce injury and minimize or prevent future occurrences.

Power Performance: Golf for Life

If you love golf, and are looking for ways to improve your game….we have your answer! You can hit hundreds of balls to improve your swing but if you have a muscular limitation or imbalance, repeating the same swing over and over won’t fix your problem. We start at the beginning…. Your body…. Not your swing. POWER PERFORMANCE is a Movement Analysis and Training program for ULTIMATE golf success. Whether you are recovering from injury or are looking to improve your game before or during the season, this program is for you. You will benefit from:

• 60-90-minute comprehensive movement analysis with our physical therapists trained by the Titleist Performance Institute, specializing in golf performance
• Identification of physical limitations preventing your optimal performance
• Prescription of a customized conditioning program to improve mechanics and efficiency resulting in POWER PERFORMANCE.

The program will be designed to meet your needs and work on your golf goals! You can meet with our trained professionals weekly, monthly, whatever fits your schedule. The cost for the program is as follows:

• $200 Evaluation
• $100 Training sessions