Occupational therapy helps individuals address the physical, visual, sensory, cognitive, and nervous-system-related symptoms that interfere with everyday life following a concussion or brain injury. Treatment focuses on improving participation in meaningful daily activities, including personal care, household responsibilities, work, school, community activities, and hobbies.
If someone experiences blurred or double vision, eye strain, headaches, difficulty reading, losing their place, reduced screen tolerance, visual motion sensitivity, or feeling overwhelmed in busy environments, these symptoms may affect daily participation. Occupational therapy can evaluate areas such as visual acuity, tracking, saccades, scanning, convergence, and visual field function and provide strategies or exercises to support improved visual efficiency and tolerance.
Following a brain injury, individuals may become unusually sensitive to light, noise, movement, touch, or visually stimulating environments. They may feel overwhelmed in stores, crowds, workplaces, classrooms, or social settings. Occupational therapy helps patients recognize nervous-system responses, regulate symptoms, gradually build tolerance, and use practical strategies to participate more comfortably in everyday environments.
Brain injury symptoms can make it difficult to balance activity and rest. Some individuals push through symptoms and experience a significant increase afterward, while others begin avoiding activities because they fear becoming overwhelmed. Occupational therapy supports pacing, energy conservation, symptom monitoring, activity modification, and the gradual development of more sustainable daily routines.
If someone experiences reduced coordination, balance difficulty, weakness, pain, sensory changes, or challenges completing precise or multi-step movements, occupational therapy can examine how these symptoms affect everyday tasks. Functional screening may include musculoskeletal function, coordination, sensation, and movement performance to guide individualized treatment and determine whether additional specialty referrals are appropriate.
Brain injury symptoms may interfere with cooking, cleaning, personal care, medication routines, driving readiness, shopping, childcare, work responsibilities, schoolwork, and community participation. Occupational therapy looks beyond isolated symptoms to understand what the patient is having difficulty doing in real life. Treatment helps patients adapt tasks, establish supportive routines, modify their environment, and implement strategies where they are actually needed.
Pain, sleep disruption, medications, home setup, work demands, and environmental stressors may all influence recovery and functional performance. As part of the evaluation, the occupational therapist considers these factors to understand how they interact with the patient’s symptoms. The therapist may recommend activity or environmental modifications and collaborate with the patient’s medical team when concerns fall outside the occupational therapy scope.
I am an occupational therapist and Certified Brain Injury Specialist whose clinical focus is rehabilitation following concussion and traumatic brain injury with emphasis on the interactions of physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms of TBI and their impact on daily life and working to reduce symptoms to restore function. With experience working across a variety of ages and clinical settings, I provide comprehensive and collaborative evidence-based treatment tailored to each person's unique goals and daily skills and routines.
My clinical practice developed a deeper understanding when in December of 2025 I experienced a moderate traumatic brain injury after a car accident. I went through extensive rehabilitation and my experience allowed me to comprehend more in depth the challenges and successes that occur after a traumatic brain injury. I assess and evaluate a holistic range of areas that can impact daily functioning including vision, practical cognition, and coordination to create a collaborative plan of care and goals for my patients to return to what matters most to them.
Outside of work, you can find me enjoying all 4 Minnesota seasons from lake days and wakeboarding in the summer to snowboarding in the winter, taking off road rides on my side by side and Jeep Wrangler, reading a horror novel or spending time with my friends, softball team, golf team, husband and 12 year old Pomeranian, London.
Licensed and Registered Occupational Therapist (OTR/L)
Minnesota and Texas
National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT)
Certified Brain Injury Specialist (CBIS)
Brain Injury Association of America
Master of Science in Occupational Therapy
The College of St. Scholastica — Duluth, Minnesota
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
The College of St. Scholastica — Duluth, Minnesota