Page 42 - BusinessWest May 16, 2022

Brain
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work on an array of interesting activities to help with physical and mental rehab in ways that don’t feel like therapy.
“Instead of squeezing a tennis ball, they are doing art projects, engaged in writing, and one of our most popular activities working on wood projects,” Kyser said.
While these activities provide physical therapy, they also help people work on their social skills. Kyser said impulse control is often affected by a brain inju- ry, so learning how to interact with the world again takes some practice.
When BusinessWest visited, staff at TRC were pre- paring gardening kits in time for planting season.
“The idea is for these folks to learn about and actually plant their own gardens at their own homes,” Kyser said. “They will then harvest and incorporate the fresh fruits and veggies into their nutrition pro- gram to bring the whole thing full circle.”
Striving for Improvement
ServiceNet is also a provider of long-term reha- bilitative care. Through its Enrichment Center in Chi- copee, ServiceNet runs the Strive Clinic to help those afflicted with brain injuries to continue to make progress in their recovery.
According to Ellen Werner, director of operations for ServiceNet’s Enrichment Center and Strive Clinic, the motivation for Strive became apparent after learning about people who were sitting at home with brain injuries who needed therapy.
“People with brain injuries need someone to encourage them to get up and move, otherwise they will just sit and do nothing,” said Werner.
Part of the recovery process also involves persuad- ing people to try things when they don’t think they need to participate. Alyssa Bustamante, an occupa- tional therapist with Strive, said that she and her col- leagues try to make patients understand that recovery happens when all the therapies work together. Left to their own devices, patients will tend to only take part
Landscapers
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roll and he could easily add another 10 — if he could find them. “Just before COVID, we hired a full-time recruiter, because even then we were having trouble finding help,” he noted, adding that the landscaping sector tends to attract young, entry-level people.
Many candidates get disqualified for failing their drug screen or for bad driving records, he went on, adding that he remains optimistic about the labor front. “We’ll get through it, one person at a time.”
Staffing has remained steady for Omasta Land- scaping, thanks to a core group that has been with the company for several years. While landscape con- struction jobs remain hard to fill, Omasta said he had the opposite experience when hiring for clerical and office jobs.
“We took out ads for office people and the response has been tremendous,” Omasta said. “It seems there are people in the job search right now, whether it’s a career change or looking for a different job.”
While coping with these day-to-day issues and challengers, landscapers are also responding to lon- ger-term trends, many of them involving the environ- ment, cost-effectiveness, or both at the same time.
Loeffler told BuisnessWest she is doing more “life- cycle-costing” for projects. With this method, she will evaluate the installation of two similar materials — for example granite curbing vs. concrete curbing.
“We look at initial upfront cost, how long before
in their favorite activities.
“Everyone loves physical therapy, so they all want
that,” said Bustamante, adding that one patient felt she didn’t need speech therapy because she just wanted to be able to get dressed. “This person had trouble sequencing the steps to get dressed, which is cognitively based, and speech therapy helps with that,”
Keeping active is essential to prevent brain injury patients from reaching a plateau and backsliding
in their recovery. At the beginning of the pandemic many brain-injury patients lost therapy sessions. By
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as the person is engaged in their therapies. My hope is as we’re getting better at this, we will see even more progress.”
There’s so much that can be done as long
Werner added, “Bill now refers to himself as the mayor of the Enrichment Center and he’s become an advocate for our program.”
Bill’s story is an example of how it’s never too late to make progress with a brain injury.
“Everyone needs to keep busy, especially people with brain injuries,” Werner said. “Just because someone says they don’t want help, we keep asking to see how we can get them moving and get them involved.”
pist with Strive also began speaking with Bill and gradually convinced him he was capable of more than just sitting in his wheelchair.
“At first, with help from others Bill could take about five or six steps on the parallel bars,” Stockwell said. “Now he can pull himself out of his wheelchair, grab the walker on his own and walk 50 feet. That’s big progress in a year.”
Bustamante said Bill has also developed better coping strategies and he speaks in more positive terms. “He’s finding the joy in himself and spreading it.”
the time they were able to return, Werner said that many came in deconditioned and could not do as much as before.
“They still had the foundation of the therapy, but they had lost endurance,” Werner said.
The Strive Clinic has adopted the motto of “Never say Never” to encourage patients to always set new goals in rehabilitation. As an example of that spirit, Werner and Bustamante discussed the case of a gen- tleman named Bill (not his real name.)
Bill had suffered a stroke more than 10 years ago, and had a below-the-knee amputation. Though he had a prosthetic device for his leg he wasn’t interested in leaving his wheelchair. Enrolled in the day pro- gram at the Enrichment Center, Bill would sit in the hallway outside of Werner’s office. When she would attempt to engage and ask, ‘What would you like to do today?’ Bill’s response was, ‘Shut up and leave me alone.’
Bustamante and Lexi Stockwell, a physical thera-
each needs to be replaced, and then the cost over 100 years ... and it’s crazy,” said Loeffler. “While granite is more expensive at the onset, over a 100-year period it’s significantly cheaper.”
She explained that concrete curbing has a useful life of about 15-20 years, so any time the asphalt pav- ing is replaced, a new concrete curb will need to be built. With granite, a bucket loader can pick up the curbing and reset it each time the area is paved.
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vehicles back in December. And we won’t see them until July or August.”
Loeffler admits most people don’t get excited about curbing, and she understands that project managers may opt to save money in their budget by using concrete, though granite proves to be a less expensive choice over the long term.
In a similar vein, Corrigan said changes are hap- pening with the safety surfaces on new playground construction. For many years, landscapers have cov- ered the areas around playground equipment with a thick installation of wood chips. The specs now call for poured in place rubber surfacing.
“It can cost four to five times more than wood
Kyser spoke to a misperception that con- tends the first 90 days after diagnosing a brain injury is the real opportunity to make progress on a patient, but after six months that opportunity is gone.
“That’s baloney,” Kyser said noting that in the past, services didn’t exist after six months, so without engagement it was no surprise that the person was hitting a plateau.
The Bottom Line
Thanks to the efforts from agencies like Encom- pass, MHA and ServiceNet, brain injury patients are making progress every day re-gaining the use of their muscles, many can walk again, and, most important- ly, live with independence after their injuries.
“There’s so much that can be done as long as the person is engaged in their therapies,” Kyser said. “My hope is as we’re getting better at this, we will see even more progress.” u
chips, but project owners want it because the rub- ber works better from a safety perspective and they don’t have to go back every year to dress off the wood chips,”Corrigan said. The two-part process involves
a base mat with a colored surface on top. In order to meet safety requirements, the rubber surface goes through a series of tests that mimic children falling on it.
Getting the Real Dirt
Looking at the proverbial big picture, Omasta said he understands that people don’t think about landscaping on cold, raw spring days, and there have been quite a few of them lately. “Once we start see- ing sunny 70-degree days, the phone will ring off the hook,” he said, expressing optimism that his compa- ny, and this sector, will continue to flourish in these challenging times.
Graziano concurred, noting that the cold and windy weather has kept early customers from brows- ing at the garden center and from booking landscap- ing services.
“We’ve had a little slower April, but most likely May and June will be crazy — it’s the nature of the business,” he said, adding that nature, meaning Mother Nature, is just one of many issues to be con- fronted during what will likely be a different kind of year. u
We placed an order for three new
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