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Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Time: 5:00 PM PT / 6:00 PM MT / 7:00 PM CT / 8:00 PM ET
Deadline to register: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 8:00 PM ET
Presented by: April O'Connell, OTR/L, CHT, ACSM
Format: 45 minutes presentation, 15 minutes Q&A
Webinar Description:
Hand therapists are trained in treating patients from the finger to the shoulder and our basic schooling has taught the therapist how to look globally and at the athlete as a whole. This presentation will provide a comprehensive understanding of the physical demands of the overhead athlete, how to perform a total body examination based on evidenced-based practice, as well as treatment strategies based on the athlete’s occupational profile. It is imperative that each clinician treats the whole athlete and remains patient-centered rather than “spot treating”. A detailed literature review of best available evidence as well as “out of the box’ treatment techniques will be presented on including demonstration of novel, multi-joint, multi-planar thrower’s ten exercises that we have recently studied using surface EMG technology to demonstrate the effectiveness of these exercises. Specific hand and wrist injuries and return to sport orthotic fabrication will be discussed and cases reviewed of professional athletes.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, participants will:
- Understand how deficits in the lower extremities affect the upper body and conduct a comprehensive screen to evaluate the athlete’s stability and mobility for injury prevention and efficiency in performance
- Confidently break down the functional role of the overhead athlete and then administer advanced therapeutic exercises mimicking the client’s occupation using multi-planar, multi-vector movements
- Understand specific areas of how the overhead athlete’s occupational performance can be affected by hand dysfunction
- Differentiate between post-operative rehabilitation protocols for hand injuries and instabilities
- Understand conservative and orthotic treatment algorithms for a variety of trauma diagnoses for the overhead athlete
Attendees earn 1.0 contact hour or 0.10 CEUs
Can't watch live?
Registrants will have access to the recording after the live event to watch on their own time.
An email will be sent to all registrants approximately three to five business days after the live presentation with access to the recording, handout and quiz for CE credit.
Registration Fee:
Members $35
Student Members $20
Non-Members $55
Student Non-Members $30
* The ASHT Webinar Committee conducts an audit of webinars to ensure that the content is keeping up with the latest science and research. Please note that this webinar may be updated in the future. At that time, the purchased webinar will no longer be available for view.
April is an occupational therapist at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, CA. She works with a variety of sports teams including the NFL, MLB and NBA and recently spoke at ASHT and AAHT on Rehabilitation of the Overhead Athlete. She is one of the main contributors to the fellowship program for hand and upper extremity rehabilitation as well as the co-director for Cedars Sinai Hand Symposium.
April got her start as the Clinical Specialist in the Hand and Upper Extremity Therapy Department at NYU Langone Health. She has lectured to orthopedic surgeons and therapists nationally and internationally in current concepts of orthopedic rehabilitation of the upper extremity. Some of her lectures include being a guest speaker for Dr. Radio on Sirius Satellite on topics for rehabilitation of the hand and upper extremity as well as injuries to the overhead athlete. In addition, April has presented on Flexor Tendon Repair Advancement at AAOS in 2015 and was later asked to speak at the ASSH national conference in 2016 and the ASHT Annual Meeting in 2017. She presented her latest research at ASHT National Conference on Flexor Tendon Rehabilitation in 2019, spoke in 2022 on Rehabilitation of the Overhead Athlete and in 2024 on Exercise as Medicine.
April is a founding member of the NYU Langone Golf and Pitching Labs and was the head hand therapist for the first successful bilateral hand and face allotransplantation. She earned her Occupational Therapy degree at Boston University, is a Certified Hand Therapist and is certified by the American Council of Sports Medicine (ACSM) as a Clinical Exercise Specialist.