The Active Gym ft. Stephen

June 2023

We are not the kind of facility to rest on our laurels. As we have continued to expand our Livingston Day Program over the past five years, we have challenged our therapists to use their knowledge and ingenuity to create new activities and therapies for our clients. Spoiler alert: our therapists never disappoint. This time it was the OT Department who stepped up to the plate, recently creating a brand new therapy room for our DD population called the Active Gym.

According to Patricia Bailey, one of our OT therapists, the Active Gym is an OT treatment space created for clients to increase their alertness and attention. The walls of the Active Gym are adorned with bright colors, lights and decals for visual input, and there is always upbeat music playing for auditory input.

Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

William Shakespeare

For all those die-hard UI Rehab fans out there, you already know about our extraordinary Sensory Gym that was designed for our DD clients a few years back. (If you don’t know about the Sensory Gym, we will be doing a special feature on it next month). Think of the two rooms this way: if the Sensory Gym is meant to calm and soothe clients who are overly stimulated, then the Active Gym is meant to increase attention and arousal levels for clients who require more stimulation. Pati describes the Active Gym and her session with Stephen further: “Within the active gym, there is a swing, a trampoline and various mats, pads and balls to increase the client’s proprioception and vestibular input.

In these pictures, Stephen was participating in cause/effect activities utilizing the interactive wall to activate the animal noises associated with the animal wall decal and pressing the switch to activate the bubble machine. Within that session, we also worked on his basic cognition where he sorted simulated fruit into a pie by color to address his sequencing abilities. He really enjoyed the session and responds so well in that room! We are excited for its continued use!“

Whenever Universal is discussed, there is so much attention given to the therapies available for the clients – and rightly so. But not enough attention is given to the endless possibilities for a therapist working at Universal. If you are a UI Rehab therapist, you are given full creative freedom backed by the necessary resources to push the boundaries of what has been done in the past to create an environment unlike any other rehabilitation facility. The therapists have always responded to these opportunities by giving us the best versions of themselves, which benefit the clients in a direct and measurable way. So, to summarize this new Active Gym simply: the OT Department has done it again. We want to give a special shoutout to Christine White, the Director of the OT department, and Alyson Mandetta, our COTA and DD Specialist for putting up all the decals on the walls. It seems their talents know no bounds.

P.S. Click on each picture to get the full view!