Injury to the brachial plexus often results in significant impairments with motor and sensory function (Noland, Bishop, Spinner, & Shin, 2019). Occupational therapy plays an essential role in a patient’s rehabilitation not only to improve functional use of the affected extremity, but also in the identification of other barriers which may limit a patient’s recovery. With a relatively low incidence rate, occupational therapy practitioners may have questions regarding pertinent interventions, rate of recovery and if a referral to a specialist is necessary.
Participants will learn 1) anatomy of the brachial plexus (Limthongthang, Bachoura, Songcharoen & Osterman, 2013) 2) types of nerve injury and rate of nerve recovery (Sakellariou et al., 2014) 3) current evidence based interventions (Cole et al., 2020) and 4) importance of inter-professional collaboration (Wellington & McGeehan, 2015).