What We Treat

Stroke treatment in Vancouver, WA.

Rehab ended and the hand still will not open. Somebody used the words “as good as it gets.” Our therapists are Saebo Certified, and you work one-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist, every visit.

Arm and hand recovery Saebo Certified Tone and stiffness Book My Visit

Sound Familiar?

Sound like your house right now?

  • The hand closes and will not open again on its own
  • A shoulder that aches all day from carrying an arm that hangs
  • Getting dressed takes forty minutes, and the sleeve is the worst part
  • You cut the food before the plate goes down, and nobody says anything about it
  • The weaker hand sits in a lap all day, because the other one is faster
  • A home program on a folded sheet of paper, and nobody watching you do it

Two or more? Keep reading.

Why It Happens

The stroke happened in the brain. The arm is downstream.

A stroke damages a patch of brain, not the arm itself. The muscle is usually still there. What got interrupted is the signal that tells it when to fire and, just as importantly, when to let go. So the hand grips and forgets to release. The shoulder loses the support that held it in the socket. The elbow settles in close to the body and stays there.

Then the second thing happens. An arm that goes unused all day gets quieter, and joints stiffen while nobody is watching. A cause-first evaluation separates the four: what is tone, what is weakness, what is a stiff joint, and what is simply an arm that stopped being asked. Each one needs different work. That is why a generic home program so often stalls out.

Occupational therapist guiding a patient through a two-handed resistance band exercise at Gabbert Clinic

The Honest Truth

Waiting does not hold the arm still. It changes it.

If you keep waiting

  • Elbow and fingers tighten into a position that gets harder to open every month
  • The shoulder starts aching on its own, because an unsupported arm pulls on it all day
  • The strong hand takes over everything, and the weaker one drops further out of the day

If you start this week

  • You leave visit one knowing what is tone, what is stiff, and what is weak
  • The arm gets positioned, supported and protected starting that first visit
  • You get a plan with an endpoint, and you always know which phase you are in

Nobody regrets starting too early. Being discharged is not the same thing as being done.

How We Treat It

The same four phases. Built for an arm after stroke.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here is what the four phases look like when the signal to the hand got interrupted.

Starts visit one

Pain

Calm the tone. Protect the arm.

Tone gets quieted with positioning, sustained stretch and hands-on work. The shoulder gets supported so it stops aching all day, and joints get kept out of the positions that set.

Once we have a baseline

Prime

Go after what is still there.

Our therapists are Saebo Certified, which means real protocols for a hand that will not open yet. Not a printed sheet and a shrug. Repetition, with someone watching every rep.

Once the basics hold

Perform

Give the arm a job again.

The fridge door. The toothpaste cap. The seatbelt. Whatever the arm can hold, steady or carry goes back into the actual day, graded up as it gets easier.

Reviewed as you go

Prevent

Keep what you won.

Splinting, a home routine somebody actually taught you, and a clear list of what family should watch for. That is the endpoint, not another open tab of visits.

Megan has been a great occupational therapist for my husband. She has a warm personality, and she has been very professional in helping him with his mobility issues.

Shared by Jackie T. · Google review

What families arrive with: a folded home program, and the words “this is as good as it gets”

What happens here: an honest look at what the arm and hand can still be trained to do

Stroke Saebo Certified

Related Conditions

Rarely does it stay in one place.

What compensates for a painful hand usually starts complaining next. Here is what else we treat.

1

Traumatic Brain Injury

Relearning the order of ordinary things: keys, coffee, the drive to work.

Learn More 2

Spinal Cord Injuries

Rebuilding independence around what your arms and hands can do.

Learn More 3

Multiple Sclerosis

Good days and bad days, and a grip that changes between them.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What families ask before booking after a stroke.

Discharge is not the same thing as finished. It usually means a setting ran out of visits or ran out of goals, not that the arm has nothing left in it. We start with a cause-first evaluation to see what the arm and hand can do right now, and then we tell you honestly what we think is workable. We will never promise you a recovery. We will tell you what the work is.

That is the exact problem our therapists trained for. Our team is Saebo Certified, which means specific protocols for a hand that cannot open on its own yet, instead of a home program and a shrug. The Pain phase comes first: calm the tone, support the shoulder, protect the limb. Then the hand work starts, one-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist, every visit.

You get a plan with an endpoint, not an open tab of appointments. Your therapist maps the four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and says what each phase has to accomplish before the next one starts. You will always know which phase you are in and what is left. If we reach a point where more visits will not add anything, we say so out loud.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person from our front desk calls you back to get you scheduled. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Mon–Fri 7:00am–5:00pm · Sat–Sun closed
  • (360) 989-1200 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • One-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist, every visit

5.0 · 146 Google reviews

Your request goes straight to our front desk

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So we know who to look for when you walk in.

Visit Us

Care this good, this close.

Gabbert Clinic

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